A 2002 Porsche Boxster S will be the grand prize in an America Online sweepstakes. AOL obtained the car in settling a lawsuit against "a guy who by our estimates made more than a million dollars from spamming," said an AOL spokesperson.
Although the company has previously won cash judgments and destroyed computers used in spamming, Boe said the latest case "represents us moving beyond that to the toys, the fruits of spam. We'll take cars, houses, boats, whatever we can find and get a hold of."
The sweepstakes is open until April 8. Adult AOL members living in the continental United States are eligible, and they can only enter online. The contest is open only to those who were AOL subscribers before the sweepstakes opened.
- - -
Wi-Fi in a box: SBC Communications said it would offer wireless Internet access in 1,500 stores owned by UPS before the end of the year, part of a bid to build its base of business and high-speed Internet customers.
SBC (SBC) said the deal with UPS (UPS) was part of its plans to build a network of 20,000 wireless Internet access points over the next three years.
SBC's move follows similar efforts by other telecom companies, such as Verizon (VZ) and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile wireless unit, to gain a foothold in the nascent market for high-speed wireless Internet access.
- - -
Dialing for dollars: British mobile phones will soon be sporting advertiser-sponsored search engine links in the style of those ubiquitous Web advertisements after two major players struck a deal with Internet search specialist Overture Services.
Vodafone (VOD) and France Telecom-owned (FTE) Orange will begin displaying the new advertisements later this spring on their WAP portals, Overture said.
Overture, owned by Yahoo (YHOO), started the practice of selling ordinary-looking Web page links at the top of search engine query lists.
- - -
Infringe benefits: Intel said it will pay $225 million to Intergraph to settle a patent-infringement suit related to Intel's Itanium microchips.
Intel (INTC) said it will pay $125 million by April 5. It will make four additional payments of $25 million in each of the next four quarters.
In addition, Intergraph (INGR) has granted Dell (DELL) licenses to some patents and agreed to dismiss Intergraph's separate pending litigation against Dell, Intergraph said. Intergraph sued Dell for patent infringement in December 2002.
- - -
AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
