AOL is playing hardball with spammers, and with spimmers - those spammers who are taking their garbage to instant message in addition to, or instead of, email.

[As an aside here, who would buy something from someone who has invaded their instant message space to send them spam??]

Believed to be first anti-spam lawsuit in the country, AOL's lawsuit was filed under CAN-SPAM, which they apparently feel will sufficiently cover spim as well as spam. 

As an indication of their tough stance against spam of any nature, AOL's general legal counsel, Randall Boe, said that AOL is committed to go after spammers on behalf of their users "no matter where they are, or how they send their unwanted junk. This means pursuing spammers who are either using new platforms, such as instant messaging or chat rooms, or those who are peddling junk to our members abroad, such as Europe or Canada."

Too bad they can't do anything about that political spam.