NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - AOL is giving its subscribers a chance to profit from spam.

On Tuesday, the Internet service provider launched a sweepstakes aimed at promoting its anti-spam initiatives. The grand prize is a silver-gray metallic 2002 Porsche Boxster S. The car was previously owned by a major spammer AOL sued in 2003.

"The first impulse was to keep it as the official legal department car," joked Randall Boe, AOL's executive vice president and general counsel.

Boe said the company receives a cash settlement from its anti-spam suits but in this particular situation the spammer was nearly bankrupt following the legal proceedings and subsequent IRS investigation. So AOL accepted the vehicle as partial compensation for damages owed.

The use of the car as a prize, as Boe sees it, is sort of "symbolic justice" for consumers.

AOL estimates that it blocks an average of 2 billion spam e-mails each day and receives roughly 10 million spam reports from its subscribers. Boe declined to put a price tag on how much spam has cost AOL, saying that the company didn't have a way to measure many of the intangible costs, such as lost productivity, of spamming.

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A study conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in February reported that 86 percent of e-mail users reported some distress with spam. Over a quarter of the respondents, 29 percent, also said that they have reduced their overall use of e-mail because of spam.

Last November, Congress passed the Can-Spam Act of 2003 to curtail abusive e-mail marketing practices. Boe says the legislation, which took effect January 1, has made it easier for ISPs to target spammers.

"What the Can-Spam Act did was give Internet service providers a lot more significant weapons against spammers," he stated. "It has made it easier to go after spammers and that will ultimately have an effect on the amount of spam that's out there."

The sweepstakes ends on April 8 and is open to AOL subscribers 18 years of age and older who live in the continental United States.

AOL is a division of Time Warner (TWX: Research, Estimates), the parent company for CNN and CNN/Money.com.