Trouble Brewing for Kraft and Gevalia Over Coffee Spam

FOSTER CITY, Calif., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- A federal lawsuit alleging violations of federal and California anti-spam email laws was filed today in U.S. District Court, Northern District, in San Francisco against Illinois-based Kraft Foods, Inc. (NYSE:KFT) and its New Jersey-based subsidiary Victor Th. Engwall & Co., for using illegal spam to advertise Gevalia coffee.

The complaint demands a jury trial and seeks statutory and liquidated damages that could exceed $11.7 million.

Bay Area Attorney John L. Fallat filed the suit on behalf of client Hypertouch, Inc., a small Internet service provider (ISP) in Foster City, Calif., for flooding the ISP's customers with more than 8500 unsolicited and unwanted email advertisements for Gevalia. "This lawsuit is a strong warning to companies that they will still be held accountable even if they pay someone else to do their spamming," says Fallat.

"Despite ongoing complaints, Gevalia has been using illegal spam since 2001," said Hypertouch president and founder Joe Wagner. "Gevalia routinely uses some of the most notorious spammers in the business." The suit alleges that the defendants and/or their agents send spam email advertisements with fraudulent and misleading headers, often to randomly generated and harvested email addresses. "Gevalia's spam is even specially tailored for different targets," Wagner continued. "In January 2005, Microsoft Hotmail users received Gevalia spam that had hidden text copied from the web pages of ABCNews.com to get around spam filters."

"Gevalia provides a perfect example of the deep flaws federal CAN-SPAM Act," Wagner said. "CAN-SPAM put the onus on the public to do what you should never do -- attempt to 'opt-out' of spam. We submitted a brand new, never used email address to Gevalia's opt-out link as a test. Sure enough, that email address, given only to Gevalia, started getting daily spam for all kinds of products and services."

"If submitting email addresses to Kraft's Gevalia is demonstrably a bad idea, imagine the peril in submitting addresses directly to the spammers they hire," Fallat added. "The aptly named CAN-SPAM Act should be rewritten so that it supports strong anti-spam laws like California's instead of deliberately weakening them."

Anyone who has information about the email marketing and/or business practices of Kraft or Victor Th. Engwall & Co (a.k.a. Gevalia) is invited to contact attorney John Fallat at 415-457-3773 or email him at jfallat@fallat.com. Full details and ongoing updates are available at http://legal.hypertouch.com/ .


Source: John L. Fallat

CONTACT: John Fallat, 415-457-3773

Coffee Is Good For Your Health

Caffeinated beverages, and coffee in particular, have got a bum rap. Some people say coffee is harmful and many try to cut the drink out of their diet altogether. But don't put away your Mr. Coffee yet--recent studies suggest that regular consumption of caffeine can actually improve health. Good news for Starbucks--and for you, since you can now have your morning cuppa joe without feeling guilty!

According to researchers at Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women~s Hospital, studies indicate that those who drank coffee on an ongoing basis within a test environment were found to have a considerably reduced risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes than those who did not consume the beverage. In fact, male participants appeared to have received the greatest benefit. Those who drank more than six cups per day were shown to reduce their risks by more than fifty percent. Conversely, women who drank the same number of cups were only shown to reduce their risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes by less than thirty percent ~ still impressive, though not as significant as the benefit to men.

According to scientists, antioxidants in coffee may affect how the body reacts to insulin, a substance that is related to blood glucose levels. Caffeinated coffee may actually increase the body's sensitivity to insulin, lessening the likelihood of an individual developing Type 2 Diabetes.

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Seattle's getting a taste of Juan Valdez's brew

By Monica Soto Ouchi

Seattle Times retail reporter

In downtown Seattle, workers don't think twice about passing a Starbucks cafe on three consecutive blocks.

But even in the heart of latte consumption, this cafe stands out.

The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia opened a Juan Valdez Cafe this week near the corner of Fifth Avenue and Pike Street. The store, its third U.S. location, celebrates its grand opening today.

To many Americans, Juan Valdez is a household name. The fictitious Colombian coffee farmer of TV advertising fame has long touted his country as the producer of "the richest coffee in the world."

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