Spammers given boot by net host

US firm Savvis was allegedly earning up to $2 million a month from 148 of the world's worst spammers, a former employee had claimed.

Along with C&W US's 3,000 business customers, Savvis inherited 95 major spammers who make their money by sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails a day with the standard mix of Viagra and porn offers.

As rumours about Savvis and the spammers grew on the internet, executives discussed different ways of keeping the customers and whether they could hide them by changing their names or their computer IP addresses.

Mr Terranson went to Steve Linford, who runs the Spamhaus block list from a small house boat on the River Thames near London.

In three long conversations with Savvis executives last Friday, Mr Linford persuaded them to ditch its spamming clients after threatening to block all Savvis e-mails, making it very difficult for them to communicate with the outside world.

Mr McCormick promised that within the next 10 days all spammers will be taken off their network.