This holding page has replaced the original site
Earlier this week the company released a screensaver that bombarded the sites with data to try to bump up the running costs of the websites.
But the site hosting the screensaver now displays a pink graphic and the words "Stay tuned".
No one at Lycos was available for comment on latest developments in its controversial anti-spam campaign.
Data storm
Lycos Europe's "Make love not spam" campaign was intended as a way for users to fight back against the mountain of junk mail flooding inboxes.
People were encouraged to download the screensaver which, when their PC was idle, would then send lots of data to sites that peddle the goods and services mentioned in spam messages.
Lycos said the idea was to get the spam sites running at 95% capacity and generate big bandwidth bills for the spammers behind the sites.
But the plan has proved controversial.
Offline sites
Monitoring firm Netcraft analysed response times for some of the sites targeted by the screensaver and found that a number were completely knocked offline.
Attacking a spammer's website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick
Graham Cluley, Sophos
In such attacks thousands of computers bombard sites with data in an attempt to overwhelm them.
Laws in many countries do not explicitly outlaw such attacks but many nations are re-drafting computer use laws to make them specific offences.
Lycos Europe now appears to have put the plan on hold. The site hosting the screensaver currently shows a holding page, with the words, "Stay tuned".
The numerical internet address of the site has also changed. This is likely to be in response to spammers who have reportedly redirected traffic from their sites back to the Lycos screensaver site.
The campaign has come under fire from some corners of the web.
Many discussion groups have said that it set a dangerous precedent and could incite vigilantism.
"Attacking a spammer's website is like poking a grizzly bear sleeping in your back garden with a pointy stick," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
"Not only is this screensaver similar in its approach to a potentially illegal distributed denial of service attack, but it also is in danger of turning innocent computer users into vigilantes, who may not be prepared for whatever retaliation the spammers care to dream up."
Internet portal and mail-provider Lycos Europe has launched a program to increase spammers' bills by having thousands of voluntary users' computers repeatedly query websites from which spam originates. Such a tactic would increase the bandwidth costs for these websites. However, it also faces legal questions.

Spamming, the mass sending of unsolicited emails, is lucrative in part because each email can be sent for nearly insignificant costs. With such low costs, a commercial spammer needs only to have a very small number of recipients buy their product to make a profit. The goal of many anti-spam proposals has been to increase the cost of spammers sending messages. Lycos' approach is to make it more expensive to maintain servers that send spam.

Volunteers may download the screensaver from the  Lycos website for it. The program would run on a user's computer in the background and request about three megabytes (3MBs) of data every day. The screensaver shows which spam server is being targeted by the user, where the server is located, and how many others are attacking it at that moment. Target email servers are selected from blacklists from anti-spam organizations, with Lycos' own verification.

Legal issues arise over whether this can be interpreted as a denial of service attack. In such an attack, computers overwhelm a webserver with requests for data to the point where it does not have the resources to fulfill its normal function. Lycos, in explanatory material on the screensaver's dedicated website ( http://makelovenotspam.com ), claims that its technology closely monitors the screensavers' effects on targeted websites and prevents any of them from being completely shut down by information requests. 

Lycos Europe operates in Germany where, according to Joerg Heidrich of Heise Zeitschriften Verlag, less than completely shutting down a server is not clearly illegal under the penal code. It may, however, be actionable under the civil code. But Lycos may be betting that no one will file a suit, as that would require those participating in illegal spamming to reveal their identity.

The website no longer allows downloads of the screensaver, and users of the screensaver cannot connect to spam sites, but are instead given the message 'Stay Tuned'