AOL digs for gold to pay for spam

AOL is digging for gold in an effort to recover millions owed by a man it sued for sending out spam, searching for gold and platinum bars he is believed to have buried.

AOL won a $12.8 million judgment last year in U.S. District Court in Virginia against Davis Wolfgang Hawke after suing him for sending millions of unsolicited e-mails to its customers.



AOL plans to dig on his Medfield, Mass., property for the bars, since it has been unable to contact Hawke to recover any of the money,. The search has been permitted by the court. Court documents list Hawke's last known residence as being in Medfield.

"This is not new," AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said. "We've seized cars before, cash, gold coins and other assets including a boat, and even worked with the Virginia attorney general to put a lien on several houses."

Any money recovered would be used in AOL's spyware and spam protection programs.

Note: AOL is owned by Time Warner, which is also the parent company of CNNMoney.com.