Readers were concerned after studying the evidence introduced by New York State Attorney General Elliott Spitzer in the case announced yesterday against three spam outfits. In e-mail messages written in early June to officials at co-defendant Synergy6 Inc., notorious spammer Scott Richter of OptInRealBig.com had bragged that "we have a worked a deal with Brightmail ... and have the first white listed IP space with them ..."

Brightmail firmly denies any dealings with Richert. "Under no circumstances is there any 'deal' or agreement in place between Brightmail and Scott Richter, or any sender of unsolicited commercial e-mail across the globe," Francois Lavaste, Brightmail VP of Marketing, said in a statement provided the GripeLog. "Brightmail has no knowledge of the defendants' actions, has at no time been in negotiation with the defendants, and does not condone any activity that would lead to the creation or dissemination of unsolicited commercial e-mail from any source."

"Brightmail does not and will not provide safe harbor to any senders or distributors of unsolicited commercial e-mail," Lavaste continued. "We applaud the State of New York Attorney General's office for taking these actions against known distributors of unsolicited commercial e-mail, and look forward to providing any possible assistance during the course of this litigation."

Richter also claimed in some of the e-mails sent to Synergy6 that he has agreements with major ISPs to white-list their spam runs. Earlier this month, Richter was quoted by Reuters as saying he had recently visited AOL headquarters. AOL has neither confirmed nor denied that it had dealings with Richert.