Cyberstrike man slammed for spam

The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications (CUT) has condemned the actions of a rogue member who sent spam to 25,000 people yesterday. Loose cannon David Hawker sent the unsolicited email to promote a European-wide cyberstrike due to take place on June 6. In open defiance of what many people believe to be the scourge of the Net, Hawker wrote: "If you receive this message then your email address is stored on my computer. This message is being sent out to about 25,000 potential email addresses from my email archives. I apologise in advance if this message is of no interest to you - this is a 'spam', but not the bad variety that most of us know about, rather it may be the first useful spam you've had. :-)" But CUT -- which campaigns for fairer telecomms pricing for Net access -- has condemned the act and apologised for the behaviour of one of its members. "I can only apologise profusely," said Erol Ziya, a spokesman for CUT. "Hawker did it without our knowledge and we do not endorse his actions in any way. I sincerely hope that it doesn't do too much damage to our campaign," he said. Ziya confirmed that Hawker will be reprimanded for his actions and could even be kicked out of CUT for sending the spam. Any decision to expel him from the pressure group will be taken on Monday when the CUT committee gets together for its weekly meetings. ®