In some cases, publishers played a little dance with PW, giving it an idea of how much an author sold (saying something like less than so-and-so but more than so-and-so), leaving PW to make an estimate, which is indicated by an asterisk next to the sales number.

FORBES: The Top Selling Female E-book Authors

Prosecutors said PW Marketing violated the 1998 anti-spam law because these unsolicited e-mails were sent without a free call number for recipients to phone to stop additional mailings.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | California wins anti-spam case

Settlements with Price Waterhouse (PW) India, the US-registered audit firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Satyam, the Indian outsourcing company that blew up in a dramatically public and fraudulent fashion in early 2009, will probably provide significant ammunition to private lawsuits still pending in New York and court hearings in India.

FORBES: Price Waterhouse India Settles With Regulators But Satyam Saga Not Over

The judgement, which Mr Lockyer said will be the model for future spam injunctions, forbids PW Marketing from sending unsolicited commercial e-mails, accessing computers that belong to other people without their permission and disguising its identity by sending messages that appear to originate from a different address.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | California wins anti-spam case

Finally, what happened to the seemingly slam-dunk claim that PwC U.S. controlled the audit and PW India through the U.S. Global Capital Markets Group?

FORBES: The Grand Illusion: PwC Settles Satyam U.S. Class Action Claims