EarthLink shares rally despite service interruption

EarthLink Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK) shares moved up 3 13/16, or 18 percent, to 25 9/16 Wednesday despite some service outages caused by problems with its verification system.

EarthLink, which completed its merger with MindSpring Enterprises Inc. (Nasdaq: MSPG) earlier this month, said the authentication snafu was only effecting its 1.8 million customers and none of the MindSpring clients.

"Basically, at this point we can't tell who people are, so people are getting authentication errors," an EarthLink spokesman told Reuters. He added that the problem was at the company's Pasadena, Calif., facility.

"The rest of the service is up and running. You just can't get to it," he said.

The outage lasted more than 45 minutes, EarthLink officials said, and the company said it was working to quickly remedy the situation.

EarthLink shares had fallen to a 52-week low of 19 3/4 earlier this week after peaking at 31 7/8 in April.

In its latest quarter, EarthLink posted a loss of $25.9 million, or 22 cents a share, on sales of $199.1 million.