Amazon.com opened a new front in the war against junk email yesterday, filing lawsuits in US and Canadian courts that seek to stop e-mail spammers it said had been fraudulently using its identity to send out unsolicited messages, known as spoofing.

In what it termed a "strong message... that \ will not be tolerated", the online retailer is also seeking millions of dollars in punitive damages from a mix of 11 spoofers and advertisers.

The company accuses them of sending out emails purporting to be from Amazon, although in reality they were spam.

Amazon said the integrity of all online brands was at stake from such fraudulent practices, which annoy consumers by filling up their inboxes with unwanted email.

It is the first big e-commerce company to take legal action against spoofers.

"Spoofers lie about who's really sending these emails.

"Spoofing is forgery, and we're going after spoofers to the full extent of the law," said Mr David Zapolsky, Amazon vice-president and associate general counsel.

Spam accounts for more than half of all emails and the fight against junk email could cost US companies up to $20 billion (€18.35 billion) this year.

Some computer security experts believe the "Sobig" virus, which has caused disruption to corporate email systems throughout the world over the past week, may have been the work of a spammer experimenting with ways to gain entry to corporate and individual PCs, and to use these machines for spam spoofing. - (Financial Times Service)