I Won A Lawsuit Against A Spammer 272
Ellen Spertus writes: "I sued Kozmo.com for sending me unsolicited commercial email and won using California's anti-spam laws. I believe it is the first case of its kind. Read the whole story, including why this particular piece of spam pushed me over the edge and how I sued in California Small Claims Court. I doubt I'll ever collect, since Kozmo is going out of business, but I'm very pleased with the outcome." Please do this.
Oh sure.... (Score:2)
"Yer Honor, we uh, well, our lawyers left, so, uh, well.... crap, okay here's yer money"
:P
MAKE MONEY FAST (Score:3)
But I thought spamming was a big money maker...
Slashdotted (Score:5)
Update (April 17): I won!
Background
In November, I received email from Kozmo.com that stated that it was being sent to people who had NOT opted in to receive announcements. My complaint to privacy@kozmo.com (the address listed on their website) bounced. A message I sent to customer service was replied to with the statement that the message was not sent in error; they were intentionally mailing people who had not opted in. At this point, I sent a registered letter to Kozmo, asking for (1) an apology, (2) $250, and (3) assurance that this would not happen again. I said that, if I did not receive these, that I would file suit and expected to win under California law. I was not able to get the names of Kozmo officers from the website or by phone, so I addressed my letter to Christopher Shimojima, who was listed in a magazine article as being the VP for customer service. I received the return receipt but no reply. I sent a second letter, which was not replied to in a timely manner.
I filed suit in California Small Claims Court for $500 against Kozmo.com for violating our agreement and sections 17538.45 and 17538.4 of the California Business and Professions Code. I had the SF courts serve papers on Kozmo by registered mail. I paid $27 in filing fees. A court date was scheduled for Wednesday, April 4.
Eventually, I did get a response from Kozmo to my letters. Specifically, a message was left on voicemail denying any wrongdoing but offering me "ten Kozmo dollars". I did not return the message.
Hearing: April 4, 2001
I prepared for the hearing by printing all relevant documents in duplicate and highlighting key sections. I tried emailing privacy@kozmo.com, still listed in the privacy policy, to see if it worked and got another bounce. I made a printout of the privacy statement and the two bounces.
At the beginning of the court session, the clerk determined who was in attendance, at which point I found out that Kozmo had sent a representative. The clerk informed us that we needed to share any exhibits with the opposing side, so I gave copies of my documents to the Kozmo rep. (I had only made two sets of documents, one for me and one for the judge. I should have brought three copies.) Two other cases were heard before mine, both of which ended with the judge saying she would mail her ruling in 1-2 weeks. (The other cases involved a car towing and an injury at a Safeway grocery store, apparently due to slipping on chicken grease.)
The judge first asked me to state my side of the case, which I did, as above. I also pointed out that in addition to being the recipient of the email, the mail was routed through a machine that I own with my husband, which may make me qualify as an electronic mail service provider under California Business and Professions Code 17538.45. (The spam was sent to yap-ers@spertus.com, then forwarded to spertus@mills.edu.)
The judge than asked the Kozmo rep to tell her version of the story. She claimed that the mail was not unsolicited commercial email because:
I had an existing business relationship with Kozmo. (This is a reference to paragraph a2A of 17538.45.)
It was not an advertisement; it was a service announcement letting customers know that they could opt in.
Furthermore, she said:
It was only a single message, not multiple messages.
Section 17538.45 applies to electronic mail service providers, which would not apply in this case.
Kozmo's privacy statement only promises not to share our email address, not to avoid sending us unwanted email.
When it was my turn again, I responded to the points:
Confirming that, yes, I did have a business relationship with Kozmo. (It seems like good manners and good policy to express agreement when the opponent says something with which I can agree.)
Arguing that the message was not just an announcement. Its second paragraph, which I showed the judge, announced new services. I said that I do not know if I qualify as an electronic mail service provider, but that my husband and I do serve several domain names on our computer and forward email for about a dozen people.
I did not respond to points 3 and 5.
During the wind-up phase, the Kozmo rep said that I had not received a timely response from Kozmo because I had sent my complaint letter to someone who was no longer at the company, having left the previous summer. I said that I had not been able to get the names of the officers from the website or by telephone but had gotten it from an article about Kozmo from that summer.
The judge asked us for any documents we wished her to consider. I gave her the above-mentioned documents, plus a few articles about successful suits against spammers. As with the other cases, she told us to expect the decision to be mailed next week or the following one. I will update this site when I receive it.
Judgment
On April 17, I received this judgment that I won my case. I was awarded $50 principal plus $27.50 in court costs. I believe this is the first case of its kind in California. I am very pleased.
*Clap* LOL! (Score:2)
Honestly!
Good luck, SlipOnChickenFat!
Exactly, which is why ... (Score:3)
Start it small. Write it up and talk about it a lot. Snowball it. Just like we did with Linux and countless other technologies
Re:MAKE MONEY FAST (Score:2)
And then the police break in, confiscate your computer, and arrest you for doing a MMF scheme. Within months, you're in the big house, Bubba's new cell mate.
Say hi to Bubba for me! :D
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2)
So, this guy was already a Kozmo.com customer, and he's complaining about getting administrative email from them?
Yes, after explicitly telling them not to send any.
Re:$50 + court cost == not much of a deterrent (Score:4)
I suspect that this is a moral victory, but unless spammers see huge cash awards in cases like this, they won't stop. I expect that Kozmo (well, assuming they stayed above water) would have just written this off as a small expense in their advertising campaign.
Actually, this is exactly the sort of thing that could turn the tide. One big reason there is so much spam is that it costs the spammer next to nothing. Spend $100 for a massive list of emails, and $15 for an ISP and you can send millions of spams each time. The $100 only has to be speant every few months (or buy harvester software as a 1 time expense). The 1 judgement probably added %80 or more to the cost of the spam.
One judgement for $77 won't do much, but it will show Californians that they can win in court. Two judgements for $77 still won't do much. However, 10 court dates (somebody had to be paid to appear in court) and 10 judgements for $77 and you've substantially multiplied the cost of spamming.
It's the sort of thing that could at any time without warning snowball into significant costs and a great deal of lost time for the spammer.
Sounds like a new business model (Score:2)
Re:$50 + court cost == big deterrent (Score:2)
Charles Miller
--
It's Unwanted Attention like This (Score:5)
Telemarketer: We'd like to offer you this new service that will help you block unwanted calls from telemarketers.
My Wife: Will it block sales calls from the phone company?
TM: Uh no.
My Wife: We're not interested. [hangs up]
Geoff
$50 + court cost == not much of a deterrent (Score:5)
Now, if the author had organized a class-action lawsuit... so that one court win could cost $50 * (# of people in suit) that might get their attention. As it is, if it only cost them $75 plus a lawyer's time, I imagine they figure they'd be making money anyhow, if the e-mail spurred some new business....
Re:I wouldn't mind spam... (Score:2)
Well, yes, but this wasn't just unsolicited spam. This email was targeted at people who had specifically asked not to be emailed. That seems particularly obnoxious to me. Not to mention dumb as a rock.
Contact Major News sources! (Score:5)
Get the word out!
Re:Wrong target --- WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!! (Score:3)
However, what this does do is to add to the growing number of cases where spammers have lost. At some point, someone will ask their attorney "So should I spam my customers?" The attorney will look at the history of spam-related cases and say "No, because 15 other spammers have been sued and lost; your potential liablity will be $78 per email sent."
Lawyers are risk-averse; this case sets the precedent that sending spam is risky.
Re:How to EFFECTIVELY deal with telemarketers (Score:2)
more info about Telemarketing prevention: (Score:2)
JUNKBUSTERS Telemarketing Headlines: How to reduce the number of junk phone calls you get [junkbusters.com]
JUNKBUSTERS Junk Mail Headlines: How you can gain control of your mailbox [junkbusters.com]
How to EFFECTIVELY deal with telemarketers (Score:3)
I worked briefly as a telemarkter one summer. This is how a telemarketer is scripted:
1. Call phone number
2. If no one is home, then place number on the call-back-next-week list. Goto 1.
3. If person declines offer, then place their phone number on the call-back-in-six-months list. Goto 1.
If you truly want to stop receiving cold calls, you should politely ask to be removed from all of their calling lists. If they call you back in less than one year, you can supposedly sue them in some states, but it is difficult to remember or prove whether the same company has called you twice.
If you piss them off, however, many telemarketers will put your phone number on the call-back-next-week list to harass you!! Yes, telemarketers are annoying, but they are in the position of power. Be polite and use their power for your benefit!
Re:worth the time? (Score:2)
Would it make sense to go after every spammer who spams you? Probably not. Between court fees and missed work, it would add up to more than it's worth (in my case, anyway). You're also right in that it usually is terribly difficult to track down who is doing the spamming.
Customers actually like spam!!! (Score:2)
I've been thinking of what Spamford Wallace says lately, about how there are people out there who actually LOVE spam! I have to wonder... does anyone know someone who has a "Season Pass" on their TiVo for "Paid Programming" ??
Changed my tune (Score:2)
Alright, it does seem a lot like spam when there's the second part of the message piggybacked on the first administrative part. I don't think there's anything wrong with the first part, but the advertisement of new services to someone who specifically asked not to have that advertisement is just cheating, basically. Fair enough. Looks like they got nailed fair and square, and that someone from Kozmo.com did show up and did try to make a decent stance for the company, so it wasn't just flogging a dead horse. Looks like she had a valid case after all.
Wait a minute... (Score:3)
Admittedly, I don't have all the facts since the site is Slashdotted, but if this guy was a Kozmo.com customer, I don't see how he could've won this case on any legal merits. It sounds like Kozmo.com couldn't afford the legal costs (which would've been way more than $50) and just paid him the money to get the matter out of their hair. Maybe California's definition of spam is a little broader than those that I'm familiar with.
Re:Drawing the lines (Score:2)
Because an essential part of holding the line is to make damn sure that spam remains limited to obvious scammers and sleazeballs. If even 1% of reputable businesses get the idea that it's OK to buy the $99 CD of Spew-O-Matic software and ten million e-mail addresses, then you can stick a fork in e-mail as a useful communications medium.
/.
Re:Most of the dirtbags who spam me use 800 number (Score:3)
Bottom line: be carefull when calling "free" phone numbers.
Wrong target (Score:5)
The real people who need to suffer are the assholes who buy mass-mailing software, fish for accounts to hijack, or create fake ones by the dozen, and mass-spam everybody, clogging up ISPs until they are kicked off, then repeat the process. They need to burn, severely. Winning a suit against a poor gasping dot com is not much of a vicotry.
Why don't lawyers make it easier? (Score:2)
I would be happy to give 50%, or 75%, even 100%, or whatever fines the spammer had to pay me, to any law office that would handle the case for me.
Then, all anyone would have to do is contact one of these law offices (probably in the spammer's local area) and hire them (at no cost to the victim). The law office makes money, I stop getting spammed, everyone's happy! (except the spammer!)
The only difficulty is identifying the spammer, but that's not impossible.
Re:$50 + court cost == not much of a deterrent (Score:3)
Actually, if it became a class action lawsuit, the lawyers would walk away with $5million (US legal tender) and the class participants would each get $10 (Kozmo bucks)!
Re:MAKE MONEY FAST (Score:2)
> But I thought spamming was a big money maker...
So do a lot of companies soon to appear on fuckedcompany.com :)
From AGIS (The backbone that went chapter 11 in the late-90s after hosting Sanford Wallace and getting itself blackholed into oblivion on a zillion routers) to TFSM (24/7 Media), just because you happen to be a "mainstream" company doesn't mean that theft is good business.
Good on ya, Ellen. Nice kill.
Re:Most people prefer this?! (Score:2)
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Rule #2: If you think a spammer is telling the truth, see Rule #1.
Rule #3: Spammers are stupid
Sounds like your phone company's telespammers were exhibiting Rules #1 and #2.
I'm particularly convinced of this because just last night, I saw a marketroid from the DMA on National Business Report saying "consumers like to get notice of special offers" along with their credit card bills - in a piece that's explaining why you're (if you're in .us) getting all those "Privacy Notices" in the mail from your bank or brokerage.
(Basically, a new law forces them to let you opt out, but the opt-out doesn't give you anything useful, but the DMA is hoping that so few people bother opting out that they can use it as "evidence" in Congress that no privacy laws are required, because, after all, if consumers didn't like junk mail, they'd have opted-out ;-)
When multiple marketroids start saying the same thing, my bullshit detector goes stratospheric.
Re:Only a Small Victory (Score:2)
Moderators: Moderate the parent post up. This was the key to the case, and why Joe Sixpack can't use the CA law himself.
IMHO, what we need is a federal anti-spam law that allows a private right of action (i.e. Joe Sixpack can sue), and for a large enough dollar amount (e.g. $500 per spam, not $10 per spam) that it's worth his while.
Something like the TCPA would be ideal. It's hard to collect with TCPA (telemarketing) because the telemarketers block Caller-ID, and if they hang up (making the $500 violation a willful $1500 violation), you have no convenient way of tracing them. (Especially if you live in a state that, like California, prohibits taping phone calls without the consent of both parties.) The case boils down to your word against the telemarketer's.
By contrast, with spam, you've got headers to work with and your landshark can go straight to the ISP with the subpoena.
Finally - unlike the phone company, who makes money off telemarketing (both from the telemarketers themselves, and from selling you stuff like caller-ID blocking) - the ISP has no financial incentive to cooperate with the get-rich-quick scammer, and would probably be pleased to send your landshark the requested info.
Re:Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
One, I don't follow your logic. He said "I lose more than $50 if I take a day off." That's true whether you make $51 a day or $5000 a day. I think what he's trying to say is it's not worth the time off from work to win $50 in court.
Two is your assumption that he's either in high school, or (I assume) crap. Not everybody makes $104k/year (your $50 for 1/8 day figure). The system administrator at the high school in town makes $50k/year. I make even less, doing a similar job for Town Hall, due to various factors that I won't get into. Gov't tech jobs suck, in terms of salary.
Either way, I don't care if you lose $50 for taking off an entire day, or if you lose $50 for taking an extra 10 minutes at the end of your lunch break. The point (as I see it) is that, unless you're making less than $50/day, it's not worth taking the time off to go to court and fight for it. Unless you're just doing it to prove a point and can spare the cash.
Of course, my first thought was that you could just take a personal day...
--
Re:Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
--
Reminds me of my favorite compiler warning (Score:3)
Right on. (Score:2)
What irritates us is fax-spam. Email spam is at least tolerable because of the 'delete' button, but faxes are quite expensive per page. Add on top of that the fact that fax spam usually has some horrible black thing covering the page that's supposed to be an image.
We got a 10 page (!) spam through fax once and it ate up all our toner. This is a low volume machine, so that toner would have lasted *months* (on regular simple black text on white paper transmissions) were it not for this FREE VACATION shit.
Re:Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
I don't know about you, but I value my personal days at quite a bit more than $50 too. It's worth far more to me than $50 to not have to spend one of my days off in a courtroom (in fact, I'd really much rather be at work than in court) rather than saving it for a nice summer day and using it to golf or canoe. There have been a few people in the past year that I wanted to sue, but I really find that it's not worth the trouble just for the sake of getting back at someone. However, your desire for revenge may be stronger than mine, perhaps the satisfaction of being told that you're right is worth enough to you to take a vacation day.
_____________
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
Re:Wrong target (Score:5)
Yeah, It's kinda like kicking the crap out of an old woman....
Sure, it might be fun, and it feels good while you're doing it, but, after all is done, what have you accomplished really?
Re:$50 + court cost == not much of a deterrent (Score:3)
It sets a legal precedent of $50 per message, which could really hurt a mass spammer.
Fifty per message is a detering figure.
Re:It's Unwanted Attention like This (Score:3)
Yes, such is the utter irony of Qwest. Another tactic of their that practically screams of screwing custromers is this:
When you sign up with Qwest for a phone line, Qwest sells your phone number to telemarketers. They then have the balls to do a radio and television campaign to advertise their "new, innovative telemarketing blocking service" for the low, low price of some odd few dollars a month. Of course, all they really do is take your name off the list that they sell to the telemarketers.
Of all the nerve...
Re:complain and reduce your spam level (Score:2)
That's correct. I also want a ban on wildlands oil drilling, but I'm not chaining myself to bulldozers.
I submit that until you start doing some of the work yourself, you will not ever reduce your level of spam.
I do. I have filters, and I hit delete. I also vote for congressional representitives who represent my views. And I post to slashdot. That's GOT to count for something
Until you start helping the rest of us that take the time to actually complain about it, may your mailbox be infested with the excrement of spammers!
Do you bite your thumb at me?
Here's a tip: spammers have "flamers lists" that they use to weed out addresses that are known to complain a lot...
I'm interested in such a list...keep looking!
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else. [michris.com]
Very nice (Score:5)
On second thought, it probably won't, unfortunatly.
Until then, I have my good friend, the "delete" key. Takes a second, gets rid of my problem. It's not THAT difficult.
The Good Reverend
I'm different, just like everybody else. [michris.com]
Re:Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
Man, or should I say boy, it's people like you that burn a hole in me. You just have to go around and stick your nose up at everyone else. You just have to prove that you're so much better than the rest of us.
Hey, fella - go way. We don't need your stinkin' aristocratic attitude around here.
A eulogy to my friend Kozmo (Score:2)
Re: Not Wrong Traget, but different target. (Score:2)
Re: Not Wrong Traget, but different target. (Score:2)
Re:worth the time? (Score:3)
I used to do what you are doing, have you tried spamcop [spamcop.net]? It saves me a lot of time. I just forward the spam to spamcop@spamcop.net, I get a reply with a URL, hit the URL, it traces everything for you and prepares a letter you can send with the push of a button. Most of the time it gets stuff right, though of course you still need to double check everything before you send... but it's a great timesaver.
"That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed."
Great more spam to look forward to.... (Score:2)
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
You must to this, we apologize, your accounts now work with features X and Y...
There was a more salesy one that went out to the people that were interested.
I'm glad for this article, I understand California's laws better. I wish I still had the original e-mail, I'd post it to get feedback on it.
Alex
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
I see your point. That's very salesy.
My, "sales" announcement was too the extent: we have our new discussion forums up. If you have feedback, e-mail: (email address and site hidden).
Yeah, I didn't see the Kozmo Ad at the bottom, okay, that is very sketchy.
I see what you mean regarding the administrative e-mail being excessive, also.
What do you guys think (not legal advice, ethical advice, the cost of $50 judgements is kinda insignificant regardless) is appropriate in a technical announcement.
Obviously, people opt-ing out shouldn't get routine e-mail. However, if there is a technical problem, you can obviously e-mail them. Is mentioning new features after the technical announcement WAY over board? Or is it only rude if you have a sales pitch there? I mean, once you send the e-mail...
That's for the comments...
Wow, a useful
Alex
I've done what this guy has done... (Score:3)
Under this kind of judgement, we'd have been considered spamming.
What should I have done?
Sometimes you need to send out announcements. It wasn't like Kozmo was sending you a weekly newsletter, they needed to send an e-mail.
I agree with the posts that this wasn't real scummy spamming.
I don't know why Kozmo did this, but I think that you blew one e-mail WAY out of proportion.
Alex
Re:Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
- You're a student (High School)
- You're an India-based programmer (how's Whistler coming along?)
- You're WebVan's new CEO
Most of us would lose $50 for taking off 1/8th of our day...Re:Wrong target (Score:2)
If all else fails, call them up and have your account terminated
I tried that with Amazon when they decided to change their privacy policy. They told me that they couldn't terminate my account because they needed records. They told me to contact somebody else to get myself removed from their mailing list.
Re:Slashdotted (somewhat off topic) (Score:3)
You may also call the 3 credit reporting agencies [cciw.com] and tell each of them to mark you as unwilling/unable to recieve solicitations for credit. They usually do this for people who have been on the victim end of an extensive identity theft- not someone just stealing your card and making a couple of purchases, I'm talking about applying for additional cards, setting up bank checking and savings accounts, applying for car loans and such. Tell the CRA's (ALL of them) you're afraid of having this happen to you- throw in something about mischevious teenage neighbors with computers and you should be all good.
I know all this because I moved in february, fwd all my snailmail at the post office 2 weeks before the move, and changed my address with all the companies I felt it necessary to continue to communicate with (WellsFargo, American Express, National Geographic, etc). For some reason, DiscoverCard still felt it was necessary to send BT checks IN MY NAME in the US mail to my old address. I got my statement last month, and there were 3 charges I didn't recognize, and when I called to report them the security agent on the other side was like, "Oh, good thing you called, because someone tried to do a $5000 balance transfer to your account yesterday. Do you know anyone named Isiaih?"
So I'm not out anything, but Discover screwed itself for a couple thou by spamming me. I guess the new business they get offsets the risk...
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
From the article, it looks like the Kozmo rep used the same argument you did, but the judge didn't buy it. For good reason, IMHO. Got a problem with my account? Sure - email me. But this was one very questionable "problem" ("Egads! You didn't opt-in! We can't have that, you know.") and one very over-the-line advertisment.
question: is control controlled by its need to control?
answer: yes
Re:Most of the dirtbags who spam me use 800 number (Score:3)
You can also try http://www.555-1212.com, but most times spammers aren't listed 800 numbers. Maybe we need a regulation/law requiring legit contact info for 800 owners, not unlike what is "supposed" to be done for web pages.
Also, perhaps a web page that lists and identifies these vermin? I can contribute a couple when I find the paperwork, including http://www.fax.com - a fax spammer. They were very upset when I finally tracked them down and identified them.
good luck
Get it in a district court (Score:2)
But it's worth a try to use it even if you are not in California.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
uh... no.... (Score:2)
Rate me on Picture-rate.com [picture-rate.com]
Re:$50 + court cost == not much of a deterrent (Score:2)
Re:Anti-Spam Spam (Score:2)
Would This apply to eBay? (Score:4)
This is "how to get advertising for $75,00" (Score:2)
And she won what ? She was asking for $500 and got $75,00. That's not even enough to pay for a lawyer.
In the next days you will see this thing in a lot of places and they will have some spot lights on their website and bussiness. And that's all.
I wanna see this happenning with a giant in the market !!!
Bring me MS,IBM,COMPAQ,DELL,AT&T and you will get a very happy guy.....
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
The law isn't about right or wrong, it's about the law.
Think about it.
-Ian.
Re:Not Really... (Score:2)
Get real.
Anti-Spam Spam (Score:5)
I wonder how long it'll be before we see "MAKE BIG $$$$$ SUING SPAMMERS" spam...
Re:Dealing with Telemarketers (Score:2)
That won't do a damn thing (unless the telemarketer is actually honest), and they are free to keep calling you. The proper response is "Please put me on your don't call list"
Re:MAKE MONEY FAST (Score:2)
Kozmo was using spam to promote their business of delivering items to local customers. they never changed enough to cover costs. but they were making it up on volume.
What you want to do is to be in the infomercial business selling tapes, etc introducing people to the wonderful art of spam promoting regular business junk. You make money of off people sending you money for the books and tapes, etc.
(personally. I think the late night infomercial selling tapes on how to do magic is a better value.)
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
complain and reduce your spam level (Score:2)
Until then, I have my good friend, the "delete" key. Takes a second, gets rid of my problem. It's not THAT difficult.
So, basically, my Good Reverend, you want to reduce your spam level but not make any effort yourself to do so :-)
I submit that until you start doing some of the work yourself, you will not ever reduce your level of spam.
Until you start helping the rest of us that take the time to actually complain about it, may your mailbox be infested with the excrement of spammers!
Here's a tip: spammers have "flamers lists" that they use to weed out addresses that are known to complain a lot. I'll be damned if I can find a URL right now to such a list, but I know I have various addresses on the list (and, the lists are used by spammers that want to "joe-job" antispammers as well :-)
Re:So it doesn't get slashdotted... (Score:3)
___
Re:Any Legal Experts Out There? (Score:2)
Re:Most of the dirtbags who spam me use 800 number (Score:3)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
I love the orwellian logic (Score:4)
You told us not to bother you. But someone else told us you might be wrong! So we're bothering you.
The writer should get some kind of award, anyway...
Yeah.....er...whatever (Score:2)
2. Yippee. The Good guys got paid.
3. It was only a lousy $50.00.
I applaud the effort, and it's VERY cool that you won, but I'm disappointed that you didn't get the $500.00 you expected.. Fifty bucks is fifty bucks, but come on, that barely covers dinner. If I take a day off I lose more money than that.
Not really. My work is pretty cool and it wouldn;t be a problem.... but you get my point. I just wish it would've cost more than the lawyers+$50+court costs.
Only a Small Victory (Score:4)
I thought that this was great until I read the actual laws involved. The California Business & Professions Code 17538.45 (the law that the individual sued under) states that an Email Service Provider (ESP) may sue individuals and companies that send Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) over their servers.
The only reason that the individual was able to win her suit was because her email is forwarded to one machine to another which (in her words) 'may make [her] qualify as an electronic mail service provider'.
This is indeed a victory but it's a small one. The responsibility still lies with the ISPs. Most individuals won't qualify as an ESP and, therefore, can't sue.
Re:wanna cost spam software companys $4.64 per cli (Score:2)
-
So it doesn't get slashdotted... (Score:5)
Delivered-To: spertus@mills.edu
Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2000 23:16:08 -0500
From: Kozmo Customer Service
To: Valued Kozmo Customer
Subject: Service Update from kozmo.com
Through customer feedback we heard that many of our members like you,
who originally opted not to receive occasional e-mail news from us,
would like to change their preference. Now, you can opt-in to our
subscriber contact list via the Web site -- http://www.kozmo.com -- by
clicking the "My Account" button, going to the "My Personal Info"
section and entering your e-mail address. If you choose not to
opt-in, your original preference will not change.
You also may not have heard about a new service at kozmo.com that
revolutionizes gift giving. When you first joined kozmo.com, you
could have products delivered to your door in under an hour. Now you
can use our new gifting feature to have any item on the site delivered
as a gift to anyone in our service areas in 11 cities across the
country.* Every item we carry -- from DVDs to MP3 players, diapers to
baby blankets, gourmet chocolates to martini glasses -- can be sent as
a gift. We can deliver your gift in our new signature orange box with
a personal greeting. We'll even deliver gifts on Christmas Day!
You can also subscribe to our e-mail updates by replying to this
e-mail and typing OPT-IN.
Happy holidays and thank you for choosing kozmo.com.
Best regards,
Your friends at kozmo.com
*Subject to inventory and service ability. When sending a gift, please allow
extra time for gift processing and packaging.
Copyright 2000 Kozmo.com, Inc.
Re: Not Wrong Traget, but different target. (Score:2)
After I switched my phone service from AT&T to another carrier, AT&T started regularly calling to get me to come back. The first time, I listened to the schpiel, it wasn't a better deal, so I thanked the nice lady for her time and told her to have a nice day. She was pretty cool, and only protested once.
The second time, the guy who called was a bit more insistent. I told him that, yes, I had changed my service, and yes, I was happy with what I had, and no, I didn't want to change at this time. He protested for a few tries, and I finally told him, "Look, fella, it won't work. Bye," and hung up.
The third, fourth, and fifth times, they got my roommate, who pays me money after I pay all bills. After the fourth call, my roommate called me and told me AT&T wanted to talk to me. I asked how many times they'd called. Since it was an hour before I got home, I decided to get good and angry.
I get home, and the phone rings three minutes after I walk in. [You'd think they'd bugged my apartment or something in the interim.] The guy calling sounded fairly official, so I cut him off right away. Since it was the truth, this is what I told him, but if you want to steal it, you can. You must sound very commanding doing it, but I said:
I either scared the shit out of him, or he hung up while I was ranting, because there was dead air on the other line.
And hey, my roommate ph34rs me now.
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Re:Very nice (Score:2)
Re:Most of the dirtbags who spam me use 800 number (Score:2)
So avoid leaving a pattern on YOUR line by using payphones instead.
firstly..... (Score:5)
I mean no offense however when I tell you that I'm sticking to my chicken fat slipping scheme. So far I've made tens of thousands of dollars, free groceries and theaputic massages. Life is good.
Get rich quick ! (Score:2)
This is not SPAM, this is only an unsollicited commercial email. This email has been sent to you because your email address was in a list that we purchased. You can be removed bij sending a mail to fwsdgsdfgb465gdfg41@fictiveemail.fuck
You can now get rich very quickly by an action that will not take one minute.
Ducon LaJoie from Springfield,CA got rich by doing this. It is really simple. You won't regret it.
This is the trick : send us $50 along with your credit card numbers, and we will provide you with the information on how to SUE US. It's LEGAL!
Way to go Ellen. (Score:2)
Ellen, as a fellow Californian I'd advice you to ignore the naysayers and futilists who'll sit hunched over their keyboards, tapping the "Delete" key furiously and saying it's either too much hassle or not a big enough deal to worry about.
Exercising one's right as an individual not to be bothered by hucksters large or small in your email account, mailbox or phone is always going to be a hassle. I'm sure it felt like more trouble than it was worth too, to put together all you documents, go to court, and plead your case so that the law passed to protect you could mean something.
Sorry to run up the flag on /.ers, but ensuring the validity and usefulness of the laws that are passed to help you is YOUR job, not the government's. If spam is flooding your mailbox and pissing you off but you don't want to exercise your rights & priveleges enough to get rid of it and recoup damages to you (meager though they may be) then you simply deserve every piece that sits there eating disk space & bandwidth.
More than any mass-mailing program, spammers use your apathy for profit. No apathy, no profit.
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
First off, they did not need to send this email. Do we really think that the Kozmo customers who opted-out in the beginning wanted to change thier mind? Is that a valid reason to break the opt-out? Of course not. If it was, Kozmo could simply send the same "reminder" every 10 minutes, with a note at the end that states if you opt-in, you'll actually receive less email from us!
Even if you looked at this email as an administrative alert, which is stretching it pretty thin, they totally blow it starting at the 2nd paragraph:
That, my friend, is Spam.
As for what you did, I think we can all agree that that is not spam, but simply an alert to service. As long as you didn't try to sneak an ad in at the bottom. Oh, and for the record, Kozmo's email contained 91 words of a questionable administrative alert, and 131 words of an unsolicited advertisement.
It's obvious that Kozmo, due to having financial problems, felt that if more people opted-in to their newsletter, they could make more money. To avoid actually sending spam to unregistered accounts, they created this "problem" so they could send out an "alert". Tack an ad at the end, and you're all set. Well, excpet for those pesky CA laws, that is....
Re:I've done what this guy has done... (Score:2)
Well, the only thing I could see as being an actual technical notice would be something along the lines of all user accounts were deleted, files were deleted, we've been hacked-check your credit cards, we're going to be down for 2 weeks (would be better to just say it on your home page, however, but it might not be possible), etc. Those are real administrative announcements that may cause a minor (or major, depending on your site's focus) inconvenience and/or worry to your users.
As far as slippling in a sales pitch, strictly speaking, I would say there is no excuse for ANY. After all, the administrative notice is a sort of sales pitch in itself, as it reminds the user of who you are and that they are a member. If you must, however, I would simply make it a short sentence or two at the bottom of the email, sort of like a signature. ie.,
Sincerely,
Shyster, CEO of shyster.com
Shyster.com: Home to the web's best and most complete mailing lists here! Check out our new header forgeries gallery at http://shyster.com/gallery!
Something along those lines, IMHO, would fall under acceptable.
Re:Not totally effective... (Score:3)
DON'T DO THIS! Don't try to make ISP's in charge of regulating traffic. If ISP's are sued for spam charges, then they will feel a need to register all sorts of traffic.
This is a very slippery slope, and while I agree it could be effective against spam, it's not a road we want to go down. Not unless you want even more draconian TOS's than we have now...and for them to be rigidly enforced. I'm sure a lot of /.ers have rather large p0rn and MP3 collections and host servers n residential connections. These are forbidden in most TOS's, and if ISP's become responsible for their traffic, you can bet there will be a crackdown. Not to mention the possibility of segmenting off other networks because of "questionable" content. This would not be a good thing...think about it.
It's not an ISP's fault if a company sends Spam. The ISP (should be) simply providing a link to the Internet. What is done with that link is the company's/individual's business.
Re:Only a Small Victory (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Wrong target (Score:2)
Spam used to be pretty much exclusively abusive drivel from riffraff - stuff like porn ads, cable descramblers, get rich quick schemes, and so on.
But lately more and more legitimate companies are deciding it's ok to mass-mail their customers, subscribers, or random prospects from a mail list, despite their preferences. Sometimes it's almost as impossible to get off their list as it is to get off a traditional scumbag spam list.
This stuff still counts as spam in my book. And it seems to me like it's an increasing percentage of the total spam. These outfits need to get the message that it's not an ok practice.
Any Legal Experts Out There? (Score:2)
Missing the point (Score:2)
They send her spam that says "we thought you might actually be wanting some spam, so here's how to sign up for spam."
You ask me, they deserved what they got. And let's face it: most of these failing dot-coms deserve everything they get, becuase they started stupid companies with dicey money and then swiftly ran them straight into the ground. Stop a moment and ponder on the fact that if providing some sort of valuable, valid SERVICE had been a bigger goal than gettin' rich real quick, the whole Dot-Com bubble might have actually created some sort of value in society, rather than just turning a whole lotta dollars into a whole lotta nothin'.
Re:MAKE MONEY FAST (Score:2)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2)
2. It was deliberately sent to people who had opted out from receiving such advertising.
3. OTOH, it was apparently sent just once. That's way below my annoyance threshold -- but apparently it is still spam under CA law. Anyhow, I'd probably feel different if 1,000 different companies each sent me just one unsolicited advertisement today, and that's probably going to happen eventually if we don't make it expensive.
4. The CA law allows suing in small claims court. He asked for $250 originally, the court gave him $50, which probably wasn't worth the time needed to go to court. But Kozmo had to pay someone to represent them in court -- so it would have cost less to pay the $250 in the first place. Small claims court does give a certain advantage to consumers with time on their hands -- but it saves money for both parties compared to a case in the normal court system. Also, in normal courts corporations have a great advantage, being able to bankrupt most individuals with legal costs before the case is even tried.
Re: Not Wrong Traget, but different target. (Score:5)
The first is your traditional account-fishing, mass-mailing, waste-of-space spammer. These are the guys who want you to MAKE MONEY FAST, TRY MY NEW DIET PILLS, and RID YOURSELF OF SPAM FOREVER (one of my favorites.) And yeah, these guys are generally hard to track down because they use fake addresses, bounce their spam off of unsecured mail servers, and use dial-up accounts, so they don't have a static IPs.
The second group, and the group that I feel is more insidious, is the legitimate businesses. Any idiot can spot one of the aforementioned spams from a mile away, but when I get a piece of e-mail from a real company, and it looks like someone with at least a 5th-grade education wrote it, I'll usually read it. In this case, the plaintiff specifically asked not to get e-mail from this company, and they sent her crap anyway. They even went so far as to tell her that they knew she opted out of getting e-mail from them, but they just wanted her to know she could.
This is nothing but thinly-veiled bullshit. Apply this to almost any other situation, and it becomes evident that this practice is wrong. For example, let's say I just moved, and I got a new phone installed. When I called the Phone Co., they asked me if I wanted some add-on service, like Caller ID, which I declined. Now, let's say in a month, I get a call from someone at the telephone company, saying that they know I didn't want Caller ID a month ago, but they thought I might be interested in it now. I can assure you that you wouldn't want to be in the room if I got that call. (Well, actually, it might be kind of funny...)
The only reason some people think this is OK with e-mail is because they pay a fixed rate per month (rather than per byte or kilobyte), and they can just delete the mail in a split second. Well, some people do have to pay for data transfer (or connection charges for time on-line, and over a modem, spam can add up), and this is still a waste of my time, whether it's a second of my time (in the case of spam), or ten minutes of my time (in the case of a phone call, where I'd be conversing with the unfortunate soul on the other end of the line for a while.)
Executive Summary: Spam that is blatantly spam is bad, but spam that poses as genuine business-to-business or business-to-consumer marketing is even worse. All forms of spam should be stopped post-haste.
Re:Wrong target (Score:4)
Sent a message to the rest of the old women who try to spray you with perfume as you walk by.
--Blair
$50*(# of spams) + court cost = HUGE deterrent (Score:5)
That kind of response would end spam in an instant. It would disappear from the Internet just like horse-drawn wagons from New York City.
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spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
We respect your privacy... (Score:5)
Uncheck this box if it's not the case that you don't want to not receive daily newsletters and product updates neither from us, nor our affilates, unless not authorized by us.
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Huh? (Score:3)
Please do what? Go out of business?
(*#&$%#$'in ambiguous reference.
wanna cost spam software companys $4.64 per click? (Score:4)
Re:Most of the dirtbags who spam me use 800 number (Score:5)
for more spam fighting tips check this [lenny.com]