EarthLink Sues Spammers
EarthLink Inc. is quickly gaining a reputation of taking a stand against spam. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) won a $16 million judgment against a New York man for allegedly sending more than 825 million unsolicited Emails. More recently, EarthLink filed a lawsuit against 100+ people mainly in Alabama and Canada, with some accused of identity theft and others sending more than 250 million spam Emails.

While EarthLink's approach is against spammers using the company's server through false accounts, the ISP's aggressive stance against spammers is making customers take notice and giving the company a high amount of publicity.

Spike Vs. Spike
Spike Lee spiked Viacom when he won a temporary injunction blocking the company from renaming "The New TNN" to "SpikeTV." The lawsuit brought more exposure to the cable channel than advertising.

While Lee later settled the lawsuit, allowing the name change, Viacom couldn't have asked for more exposure. Even though the company lost money due to the launch delay and the suit, there's never been such a more publicized cable network name change.

Pizza Hut Vs. Papa John's
Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Papa John's. The slogan didn't impress Pizza Hut. That along with a national advertising campaign that also claimed Papa John's made better pizza than Pizza Hut because its sauce and dough were made with fresh tomatoes and filtered water sparked a false advertising lawsuit.

A jury sided with Pizza Hut...at first. Papa John's was ordered to drop the slogan and pay Pizza Hut $467,619 in damages. But the verdict was later overturned and Papa John's is back to using the now-famous slogan.

Clinton's Publisher Threatens to Sue
When the Associated Press leaked excerpts from Hillary Rodham Clinton's book Living History before publication, Simon & Schuster threatened to take the AP to court. The book's publisher says a national publicity campaign had been planned around the secrets of the book and the AP threatened that very campaign by releasing excerpts about Monica Lewinsky, how Clinton dealt with her husband and her run for U.S. Senate.

The very threat of the lawsuit increased the book's recognition and helped Clinton break the sales record with 40,000 copies sold in 24 hours.


Lawsuits aren't usually planned promotional tools but they can have serious effects on a company reaching a wide audience that it normally wouldn't. Not all cases that end up in court spin a positive light on a company, of course. But as they say, even bad exposure is good exposure.