Antispam activist Ron Guilmette was just trying to make the Net a little less friendly to unsolicited e-mail. But when he added hundreds of Verio Internet addresses to his Monkeys.com list, he roused the ire of the Web-hosting giant.

Guilmette's list contains the IP addresses of servers that use a flawed version of Formmail, software that thousands of sites use to process Web-based forms. ISPs that use his list can automatically reject e-mail sent from any address on it.

Verio, based in Englewood, Colorado, threatened Guilmette with legal action if he didn't remove the company's IP addresses from his list. The company, a subsidiary of Japan's Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, said Guilmette was hindering its clients' ability to send and receive e-mail, interfering with Verio's business, and defaming its reputation.

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