California Supreme Court To Take 'Spam' Case

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

17 March 2003

In Intel Corporation v. Hamidi the California Superior Court ruled in 1998 that a campaign to e-mail Intel staff by ex-employee Ken Hamidi was equivalent to trespassing on private property and ordered him to stop.

Former Intel engineer Ken Hamidi bombarded 30,000 of the company's employees with anti-Intel mails between 1996 and 1998 after he was fired from his job.

Now the California Supreme Court has decided to review the ruling (later upheld by a state appeals court) in April

Hamidi, a 55-year old Iranian immigrant, argues that his messages were educational because they dealt with the company's employee policies, and that Intel discriminated against him based on his race, age and medical disabilities. Intel says that the e-mail reduced employee productivity as recipients read Hamidi's missives on company time and the chipmaker's IT team scrambled (unsuccessfully) to block them.

A number of free speech advocates have supported Hamidi, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed an amicus curiae brief in the case, saying the lower court decision threatens free speech.

Other 'spam' court cases have also found that spam can be considered trespassing on private property, but Hamidi's supporters say he is merely exercising his constitutional right to free speech.

"The State Supreme Court may not agree with us, but they think there's something wrong, otherwise they wouldn't review it," said EFF attorney Lee Tien.

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