America Online Inc says it will take legal action and seek punitive damages if an Internet business group goes ahead with its threat to post the names of five million AOL members on its Website. In the running battle over the spread of spam messages, Chino, California-based National Organization of Internet Commerce says it will publicize the names if AOL refuses to negotiate over sending mail to its ten million members. It first threatened to post one million names on New Year’s eve but delayed the action to enter more names. Said spokesman Damien Melle. They threatened us with a lawsuit so we increased the target number. We’re asking AOL to give us a minute of their times. But AOL spokesman Rich D’Amato said: I think these guys might as well slit their own throats because users are obviously very angry about junk e-mail.
