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Fax Attack This entrepreneur's fighting mad about junk faxes.

By Geoff Williams

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Steve Kirsch doesn't work in the fax machine industry, butyou could be forgiven for thinking so. Kirsch, 47, owns SanJose-based Propel Software Corp., a 50-employee,multimillion-dollar company allowing PC users to inexpensivelyspeed up their dial-up connection service. In his spare time,he's taking on companies that send unsolicited faxes. Andhe's doing it in a big way, filing a $2.2 trillion class-actionlawsuit against Fax.com (he's still waiting for class-actioncertification before he can sue). Kirsch is so vehemently opposedto junk faxes that he created a Web site dedicated to eliminatingthe problem (www.junkfax.org).

How did this start?

Steve Kirsch: In December2001, I received a fax at my office about how I could repair mycredit for $59. I had received similar faxes a month earlier,offering the same credit-
repair course for $39. Then I received a duplicate fax two minuteslater. It really pissed me off. I did some research and learned the800 numbers on the faxes belong to Fax.com.