California Sues Spammer for $2 Million 217
KilroyTheVeg writes "The Mercury News reports that the California Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, filed suit against Internet marketer PW Marketing LLC, accusing the company of illegally spamming millions of Californians. The Story is here and the Sidney Morning Herald also has the story here.
The suit named PW Marketing LLC (note:subpoena in link is third one down the page) and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffins defendants in the suit which seeks "at least" $US2 million from them for allegedly flouting several state consumer protection laws banning spam mail. All I can say is Make 'em pay, it's the only way to hurt 'em where it counts." Update: 09/30 22:02 GMT by T : Note, that's Sydney Morning Herald.
i can see it already. (Score:5, Funny)
"make money fast!!!
SUE US!!!"
Re:i can see it already. (Score:1)
what this will probably mean is that the spammers start to disquise the spams even more into some information mails or something.
like: "hello mr. aahbabal. this is a notice that you have been added to our mailing list, if you wish any further mails pls click this link.
ps. would you like to have a bigger cock, so huge it wouldnt fit in your pants, in this case press here too."
Re:i can see it already. (Score:2)
Yes, it would be. Calling something spam doesn't say anything about what's in it. It's not based on the content of the mail, but your a priori consent in receiving it.
Re:Already happening (Score:2)
Don't hold your breath (Score:2, Insightful)
Apparently... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Apparently... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Close, but not quite. I know for a fact that it was Gray Davis [e-gray.org] who's seriously pissed off because he doesn't yet have his 15% of the $52,109,995 THAT THE GREAT GRAND-NIECE OF UN SECRETARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN ASKED HIM TO HELP SPIRIT AWAY IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT FROM THE GREAT STATE OF CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE NEXT BUDGET :-)
one of a million (Score:1, Interesting)
If this were to start a trend however, it may help destroy spam comming from North America.
Re:one of a million (Score:1)
Re:one of a million (Score:4, Insightful)
So if one of the say, 10 companies gets sued for $2,000,000 and put out of business, don't you think that the other 9 will start looknig elsewhere?
And even if my 90% weren't true, and ALL spam is from random people, prosecuting one will still put the "fear of God" in them and many will think twice before sending any spam.
I'm a big proponent of making Spam illegal, and prosecuting spammers. I believe that it will cut down Spam significantly.
Re:one of a million (Score:3)
And even if my 90% weren't true, and ALL spam is from random people, prosecuting one will still put the "fear of God" in them and many will think twice before sending any spam.
This approach didn't work for well for the RIAA... taking down Napster and others only drove Sharman Networks (Kazaa) to move operations to an island where they're harder to touch, and it's only encouraging up-and-coming fully decentralized development (gnutella, freenet, etc) of other p2p apps.
I really do hope this doesn't also happen with spammers, but they're such a seedy bunch that it's not hard to image.
Re:one of a million (Score:3, Insightful)
Enforcement dollars perhaps, but there is no "erosion of freedom" associated with banning spam.
Every single bit of freedom that could possibly be "lost" was gone long ago, when other types of theft were made illegal.
Re:one of a million (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:one of a million (Score:2, Informative)
Re:one of a million (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called legal precedent. In other words, once you've gone through the pain and hassle of pushing one of these through court, then it makes it a whole lot easier to get the next one.
As to the "just one," I admit I haven't read the article on this one, but remember that these are usually SPAM services that put these things out. In other words, this isn't just one message we're talking about, but potentially thousands of "clients", each one with hundreds of thousands of individual emails to users in California. Sure, knock one out and a hundred more jump in to fill the gap, but if you can prove that it will cost you money to spam CA residents, then people will start thinking twice about all those get rich quick messages. A lot of other states are watching this case, and if CA can make it stick, there will be other states to follow.
Re:one of a million (Score:2, Informative)
But the Supreme Court is under no obligation to hear the case - they pick cases with "interesting" circumstances to establish case law. I seriously doubt they'd give spammers an audience.
So assuming that the spammers fight until the last possible appeal, this is the way it might go:
1) California State Supreme Court rules against spammers
2) Spammers appeal the ruling to Federal Circuit Court of Appeals
3) Court of Appeals rules against the spammers
4) Spammers appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court
5) Supreme Court declines to hear the case
6) Spammers are out of options
Re:one of a million (Score:2, Informative)
Re:one of a million (Score:2)
Once the courts have decided which it is, then other states are very likely to follow suite, one way or the other.
(An interesting point is, even though the SPAM originates from outside of CA, it is directly affecting CA residents, and their property (equipment at ISP's, etc). CA can't fine someone for sending me a SPAM in New York, but once it crosses the CA state line, it's in their jurisdiction. Once the originator is offshore, then things get more complicated...)
Re:one of a million (Score:1, Redundant)
Why this has not yet been done is a mystery to me.
Re:one of a million (Score:2, Informative)
Deterring these "professional" spammers (many of whom have previous convictions for fraud) should therefore have a far greater effect than the numbers would suggest. Most would probably take their "talents" to greener pastures (anyone short of a few dodgy executives?)
So would it be spam if... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So would it be spam if... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So would it be spam if... (Score:3, Funny)
Well now you can, and it's easy!
Just send $5 in an envelope to the five State of California employees listed below, then remove the top name and add yours...
Oh yes...publicity always cripples businesses (Score:1)
The only way that spammers will stop sending you email is when people stop complaining about it (because that means it's working) and stop replying to it or responding to it in any way. Much like a 5 year old child, the only way to shut them up, IMO, is to just ignore them. Pretend they don't exist.
Stop spam locally, ignore spam globally.
Re:Oh yes...publicity always cripples businesses (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Oh yes...publicity always cripples businesses (Score:2, Insightful)
cb
Re:Oh yes...publicity always cripples businesses (Score:2)
Ya know? I think you're onto something here, so I'm going to throw my support behind the chap a bit further up the page who wanted to chop up the spammers and burn 'em on TV. Certainly sounds like a reasonable solution, and hey, it sounds like fun!
Re:Realistic Spam control (Score:2)
Re:Oh yes...publicity always cripples businesses (Score:2)
dave
This is a good first step.. (Score:3, Funny)
It will be a brave new world without spam.
Re:This is a good first step.. (Score:4, Funny)
I always thought that two were enough for anyone, though I'm the first to admit I could be wrong.
Damn, the answer was there all along..... (Score:1)
sYdney! (Score:1)
Why? (Score:1)
wanna make em pay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Just go to overture.com and put bulk email in the search and click on every link you see you will cost spammers several dollars per click the reason i didn't put a clickable link is because they can tell where your comming from and if they see 1000 people come from
Re:wanna make em pay? (Score:2)
Overture prices have declined a bit (Score:2)
I did notice a few of the Usual Suspects still there - maybe not as many of the same services, though some names sounded familiar, but many of the same harvester products. I don't know if the lists of "300 million brand-new verified addresses" have changed since then :-)
Re:wanna make em pay? (Score:2)
Not exactly a huge improvement.
-
Re:wanna make em pay? (Score:2)
"You set the price you're willing to pay for each sales lead and pay only when your customers click through to your site. Independent research shows that advertisers receive the highest ROI from pay-for-placement search when compared to other forms of advertising"
But those dollar values seem a bit high.
The Al Capone Approach (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet that few of them report their ill-gotten gains to the IRS properly. Seems like one quick IRS operation could put a lot of them out of business in short order, without the need for any new laws to be carefully crafted or executed.
Re:The Al Capone Approach (Score:2)
E.g., get insurance from us... we guarantee we can beat any other offer because we'll sell you a policy but be long gone when you make a claim.
Apply for a new mortgage from us... if you're really dumb, you'll pay us a kilobuck or two in upfront fees. If not, we'll still have lots of detailed information that can be used for identity theft.
Even the miracle cream that gives you both big tits and a long dick seem to be coming from just one or two sources running some pretty heavy duty software to find open relays and "dead" domains.
Re:The Al Capone Approach (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly! Insurance fraud, unlike spam, is clearly illegal, and there is already legal infrastructure to deal with it. We should just apply existing law and go after these people now, without waiting for new laws, or getting tied up in court trying to deal with new laws.
The Bunco Squad approach; Call Joe Friday! (Score:3, Insightful)
And then there's the entire problem of *enforcement*. If I'm running a bulk emailing operation out of my basement and its now illegal, why don't I just rent a couple of systems in some foreign country where its not illegal that doesn't bother with a lot of American laws?
I'm far more convinced that if you put the effort into enforcing the current anti-fraud laws *now* on the books it would decimate the business that spammers need to stay spamming. The problem isn't UCE, the problem is fraud is going on unchecked on a massive scale and no one seems interested in stopping it.
Re:The Bunco Squad approach; Call Joe Friday! (Score:2)
Excellent (Score:1)
Re:Excellent (Score:2)
Did you use your email address on a Usenet post, on a web page contact link, or even on Slashdot recently? It could have gotten onto another "Millions CDROM" and spammers all copy each other's lists. (Shocking! They're copyright pirates too!)
As the the Nigerian 419 scam, that has connections with some Nigeria government, banking and business people.
Of course, what they DON'T tell you... (Score:3, Funny)
"Statistically, California residents are the most responsive consumers to e-mail advertisers who offer various products and services," the PW Marketing advertisement said.
Of course, what they don't tell you is that the responses you get are "stop spamming me you $$%^*&&^%&*!!"
Sharia Law! (Score:1, Troll)
"Statistically..." enterred into Babelfish (Score:5, Funny)
When enterred into Babelfish, returns:
"Statistically, California residents are the most stupid."
Re:"Statistically..." enterred into Babelfish (Score:2)
When enterred into Babelfish, returns:
"Statistically, California residents are the most stupid."
Not necessarily; if those responses are "Fsck off and die!" (You'll note that it doesn't say positive responses, or sales.)
Re:"Statistically..." enterred into Babelfish (Score:2)
slogan (Score:4, Funny)
Re:slogan (Score:3, Informative)
What's libertarian about *allowing* spam?
It's not as if the law allows us to take matters into our own hands and take down the spammers personally and permanently. So this is one case where one has to turn to the law.
Personally, if people spammed me, I'd give them one warning, and then start hacking their systems. However, as this is illegal and will end up with me paying fines or in prison, this option is not open to me.
False slogan (Score:2, Interesting)
Libertarians have never enjoyed theft. Since email spam is theft (advertising is NOT protected speech, and even it were protected, I wouldn't have to pay to hear it), spammers are thieves, mere common criminals, not first amendment martyrs.
Try again, DMA troll.
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
Libertarians have never enjoyed theft. Since email spam is theft (advertising is NOT protected speech, and even it were protected, I wouldn't have to pay to hear it), spammers are thieves, mere common criminals, not first amendment martyrs.
Spam is theft? That conflicts with other typical liberterian arguments, such as "theft is depriving someone of property, therefore music/movie piracy isn't theft".
-a
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
That's not a libertarian argument either. That's a leech's rationalization of their position.
Libertarians are for personal freedoms, with a minimum intervention of the state in their day to day business. But where others' freedoms have to be infringed to make the world work, there's nothing wrong with getting the Government involved.
Intellectual property is a highly libertarian concept. However, not all libertarians agree with this.
Besides: Spam is theft of bandwidth. Who pays for my network connection? I do. What do they pay me for their use of my data pipe, reducing the amount of data I can receive? Nothing. Therefore it's theft of my bandwidth. Not to mention it is an inconvenience, and my time is worth money.
Simon
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
That's not a libertarian argument either. That's a leech's rationalization of their position.
Yes, I'm aware of that (note my sig). But I also see it as "left-wing libertarianism".
Intellectual property is a highly libertarian concept. However, not all libertarians agree with this.
Particularly the ones who read
Besides: Spam is theft of bandwidth. Who pays for my network connection? I do.
It's the same kind of abstract theft as music/movie piracy, but I don't expect the majority of slashdotters to grasp that. You don't explicitly pay to receive spam, but the amortized infrastructure and operating costs are passed back to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
So what you're saying is that the slogan should be amended to:
Slashdot: We're libertarians, except when it comes to music/movie piracy.
-a
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
In fact, spamfighters have good reason to claim this is inevitable if spam-supporting organizations aren't severely curtailed.
1. And copyright owners have good reason to claim that lost sales are inevitable if piracy is not curtailed.
Conversely, if I copy media on my own equipment, the publisher literally cannot tell that it's happening. All they know is how many copies they sell.
2. And when your mailbox fills up with spam you can't point to any one particular message and state with certainty that that was the spam e-mail that caused a legitimate message to be lost.
Yes I know that (2) is an invalid argument, but that's my point. An argument can be statistically valid, even if you can't prove it for any specific case.
-a
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
Yes, spam is theft. And thank you for the straw man. I doubt that anyone who's thought about the music piracy issue for longer than 6 seconds takes the extremely simplistic position straw man summary you made.
Sigh...only on Slashdot!
Try asking some regular people (i.e. non-geeks) which of the whether they consider spam theft and whether they consider music piracy theft. You may be surprised at how ignorant the average person is.
-a
Re:False slogan (Score:2)
Unlikely, my current expectations of the average person are about two and a half steps above my expections of yeast.
-
Re:slogan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:slogan (Score:2)
In a real libertarian society, one could hunt them down physically, tie them up, and enlarge both their penis and their breasts in one quick yank-from-hell.
Violence is the only solution! (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, make them pay. But then, chop them up into small pieces, put the pieces into gallon jugs of gasoline, set the gas on fire and throw the burning jugs into SF Bay on national tee vee.
Spammers have proven to be so stupid that only the most Flagrantly Over the Top Demonstration of Hatred will teach some of them a lesson.
That's right, spammers: you're all incoherent stumble-bums, whose ravings are not listened to in polite society. When we can legally kill you, we will.
Re:I prefer the Fargo woodchipper method (Score:2)
Obligatory Blues Brothers reference (Score:2)
Use of unnecessary force in apprehending the spammers has been approved.
I doubt it (Score:2)
And for his next trick, the California Attorney General will squeeze blood from a turnip, unless those "make money fast" spam emails really were true, hmmmm... Don't get me wrong, sue away. Personally I wish they would make the spammers donate organs until they can pay up if/when they lose.
Full text of the injunction (Score:5, Informative)
Causes of action seem wrong here; jurisdiction (Score:4, Informative)
Also, there are jurisdictional problems - the State asserts that the defendants are doing business in Santa Clara County (northern California) so they can be tried there instead of down in southern California where they live, based on the assertion that spam was sent to email addresses in Santa Clara County - even though the one spam they're quoting in the complaint clearly says that they do business in Canyon Country, CA, and they don't list any recipients who live in Santa Clara county. That's basically equivalent to busting a snail-mail-order business from a remote jurisdiction because they mailed advertising postcards there.
I haven't read all the business regulation laws referred to, so some of the sections are probably legally correct interpretations of some of California's really bad laws, but the processes still seem inappropriate. A couple of examples:
("Canyon Country" is a city in Southern California), and if it's not in the US, it's not California's jurisdiction and California business regulations shouldn't apply to them.
All told, it's a terrible case, and it ought to be possible to either find a much better set of sleazy spammers to make an example of, or do a competent and Constitutional job of prosecuting them properly
Any word on who gets the Moolah? (Score:4, Interesting)
This doesn't seem to be a class-action suit, so who gets the cut?
The state wants it for themselves (Score:2)
In other words, they want to Make Moolah Fast by suing spammers....
bad link (Score:2, Interesting)
bork bork bork
Class-action lawsuits against spammers... (Score:2, Informative)
Hopefully this lawsuit will be the first of many. If enough states jump on the bandwagon & make it easier for private individuals to sue, this crap can at least be pushed out of the US (or any other country that set a good precedent). A few class-action lawsuits with only 10-20,000 offended parties receiving $100-500 apiece plus legal fees would go a *long* way to making spam economically unfeasible.
Tracking spammed e-mail addresses and affected ISPs would be the biggest challange, but a database set up to process forwarded spam (such as (uce@ftc.gov) could provide plenty of evidence as to the extent of the problem and damages. Set up a system so persons who use it reap the rewards of successful spammer prosecutions & you have the perfect incentive to get people to report this superficially "harmless" crime.
Fucking Slimy (Score:2)
Will the AG go after the Secretary of State? (Score:2)
But it really was from Jones campaign, and the campaign website, advertised by the spam, got cut off by the hosting company in the last days of the campaign.
A write-up [wired.com] of the incident is on wired.
It figgers (Score:4, Funny)
ca.gov story -- more info (Score:2, Informative)
Extra-territorial (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't like spam either, but what is sauce for the goose (California going after companies in Australia) WILL BE sauce for the gander (France going after Google, Chine going after others etc).
This brings up other questions too:
1. If online gambling is illegal in your jurisdiction, can you stop it where it is based?
2. Suppose you have a data haven off the coast of Britain...
What California, China, France and Italy (among many others) are trying to do is to export their laws by extending their jurisdiction extra-territorially. Instead of a free Internet, you have an Internet governed by the most restrictive laws instead of the least. This is a bad thing for freedom on the net.
For example see:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/10/045
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=0
Etc...
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=
http://yro.slashdot.or
If you just type in "France censor" you can find a ton on here.
Re:Extra-territorial (Score:2)
You put so much effort into your long post without even realizing how your analogy doesn't hold water. Such a shame. The difference between Yahoo.com (as opposed to Yahoo.fr) hosting objectionable material on web servers and unsolicited e-mail coming in from Australia is the nature of the media.
The world wide web is a pull-type medium. Barring pop-up ads (God bless Moz!) and typo-squatters, nobody has ever visited a website they didn't actually want to see. In this paritcular example, some French actually wanted to visit the sites hosted in the US and specifically requested the information be sent to their computers. France trying to uphold French laws on US servers is akin to France trying to get the US government to enforce their anti-speech laws on French citizens who happen to be in the US at the time. Or the US trying to get France to prevent US tourists (not from Nevada) from visiting French red-light districts. Essentially speaking, the "crime," the actual act, took place in a country where the act is not a crime.
On the other hand, e-mail is all push. You don't get it because you asked for it, you get it because somebody else decided to send it to you. The sender, not the recipient, is solely responsible for the e-mail in question. As a coarse analogy, it is illegal to mail a bomb into the US, not to receive one.
The spammers based in Australia were actively conducting "business" (if spam can be dignified with that word) in the State of California. While they may or may not have intended the spam to be delivered to e-mail addresses based in California, it is no accident that the spam was sent to begin with. Their actions directly and deliberately affected e-mail accounts in the State of California. They should be held just as accountable to laws in California as if they were snail-mailing unsolicited nudie magazines to US addresses.
"What California, China, France and Italy (among many others) are trying to do is to export their laws by extending their jurisdiction extra-territorially"
In this case, California is attempting to prosecute a violation of Californian law that happened to Californian e-mail accounts. The spammers are legally obliged to be aware of Californian laws before actively trying to do things to Californian e-mail accounts. I see no problem with jurisdiction in this particular trial.
physical violence? (Score:2)
Well, that's not the only way, is it? Now that the names of the spammers are public, what if some physical harm were to come to them, or their property? That might make other/future spammers think twice.
Hotmail (Score:2)
Registrant:
Hotmail Corporation (HOTMAIL-DOM)
1065 La Avenida
Mtn. View
US
Domain Name: HOTMAIL.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Records, Custodian of (COR58) enforce_policy@HOTMAIL.COM
MSN Hotmail
1065 La Avendia
Mtn. View , CA 94043
(650) 693-7066 (FAX) (650) 693-7061
Does the punishment fit the crime? (Score:3, Funny)
For penis enlargement spamming:
Forced 5" lengthening by pulling HARD without anasthetic
For breast enlargement spam:
forced DD surgical implants for male spammers, (same for females, but the get them in the buttocks)
For MLM get rich quick spam:
Sending $1 to every name at the top of the list, $5 to every name on the next line, $25...etc
For hot naked chick webcam spam:
Locked naked in apartment full of chickens with central heating on full - streamed over web, ofc.
For hentai spam:
Rubber tenticle orifice violation.
Copy any DVD or playstation game spam:
Copying full binary content of playstation game disk onto paper with a biro.
Re:Does the punishment fit the crime? (Score:2)
Jennifer Lopez is a spammer?
60+ a day now! arrrgh! (Score:2)
Just make the fuckers STOP!
Can somebody hack and kill this spammer for me? (Score:2)
The IP is 216.34.211.29 and 216.34.211.89
The offender network is exodus.net.
They do not answer or act on my non-munged Spamcop reports (for weeks now)
Therefore, somebody please nuke them....
The link is as follows
http://clicks.sportadvisors.com/subscrib
Re:How sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because he only steals a couple of cents from a million people, doesn't mean it's not theft.
What if we arrested multiple mailers to real mailboxes?
Well, if they forged stamps in an attempt to send millions envelopes, I'm sure you would.
Re:How sad. (Score:4, Insightful)
"What if we arrested multiple mailers to real mailboxes?"
Spam is totally different from mailers. It is free to take the time to empty my snail mailbox, but spamers can send files to my e-mail that I have to pay to download. This is why spam and fax spam is wrong: they both pass on unrequested costs to the receiver, and for stuff I didn't ask for!! I recently got some java-scripted spam that was over 5M! That is totally unacceptable.
Lawsuits working in conjunction with laws banning spam seem like the best legal (as in not illegal, NPI) way to teach folks that spaming is not a money-making business.
Re:How sad. (Score:2)
It is? So you make less than the $9/hour the person who makes the mail does?
How much time do you spend sorting the spam from your mail? What about setting up the filters?
Re:What about popup ads (Score:2)
The junk postal mail receive takes us time to throw away -- and time is money. If we recycle it, it costs our local recycling center money to transport it. We pay taxes for that. That is money.
You pay a fixed amount to have a certain amount of trash collected, which the junk mail is unlikely to exceed. So, only the trash company has a legitimate claim to damages for snail mail. Additionally, there is no assurance that you would make money with your time. And most of all, by contacting the Direct Marketing Association, it is possible to opt out of 90% of junk snail mail.
Heck, pretty much anything that anybody does that we aren't *in favor* of will somehow inconvenience us and cost us money. The kid next door downloaded pr0n slows down my cable modem -- is he *stealing* from me?
That's a ridiculous statement. The kid next door has paid for his service - to the cable company. If you aren't satisfied with the service, complain to them and ask to have him shut off. Unless they guarantee you a minimum amount of bandwidth, they aren't obligated to do provide you with anything - you can quit if you don't like it.
Get real people. It doesn't cost you much money to download less that 1k messages. Especially if you have a *free* email account like yahoo, excite or hotmail. If you are careful about who you distribute your email too you can reduce a lot of your spam.
Guess what, it costs us ISPs a decent amount of money to deal with spam. If some customer stops checking his account, we get to hold his spam for him till he comes back wasting disk space. We also get to field calls from people who are pissed off at seeing porn emails in their box. And worst of all, you sometimes get that flagrant spammer who tries to send 50,000+ messages to your customers with bad return addresses - making you waste 2-3 hours of paid time cleaning out the queue so that the real messages get delivered promptly.
A final note - the one that will probably make this post be labelled as "flamebait" - how can we advocate stealing from the RIAA in the form of trading copyrighted music but have *zero* tolerance of spammers who are little more than a tiny annoyance in our lives?
Because most slashdot users are hypocrites and the file trading issue is somewhat complicated by the fact that it can be used for legal purposes even though most of the traffic is illegal.
Unsolicited spam however is black and white - abuse of my property is wrong no matter how little cost it incurs. To put it another way, would you mind if a neighbor walked through your yard everyday? Maybe not, but you would have a right to complain. And you'd probably consider taking action if 50 neighbors were doing it on a regular basis.
Re:Does this mean (Score:1)
Laugh! it's funny!
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:2)
Spammers have every right to exist, yes. And if they trespass on private property, to wit the privately-paid-for mailboxes of ISP subscribers, the subscribers have every right to sue the spammers for trespass and the state has every right to prosecute them for trespass. If the spammers don't like this, they can not trespass.
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:5, Insightful)
How about
"Government has no right interfering in the business activities of mafia."
Theft is illegal. Spam is theft.
Government has every right to "interefere" with such "business" activities.
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:2)
Perhaps you hadn't noticed, but that's pretty much what's happening.
Spammers are stealing bandwidth, and the government is passing laws against it, and then prosecuting the spammers.
What was your point again?
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:2)
I think I see the problem here: you consider occupying space and using bandwidth paid for by the recipient, when the recipient hasn't agreed beforehand, to be a legitimate business activity. The state and most of us consider it trespass, just like if you used our front lawn to host a business get-together without asking us first.
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:2)
Prosecuting under the law for this particular form of theft and trespass is exactly what the California AG is doing. They merely passed the law because, in the case of spam, it's impossible not to commit trespass and theft by doing it. Oh, some people might not mind, but you didn't know that when you did it.
As for the ISP, well, only if the ISP's TOS includes a "you must accept spam" clause. If it doesn't, then while the ISP might not have recourse the individual subscriber does because the spammer's still trespassing and taking up the subscriber's disk space and bandwidth without permission. If it were the ISP paying it might be different, but the ISP isn't paying and the subscriber has the bill from the ISP to prove it.
Re:Spammers have every right to exist (Score:2)
If the majority of the voters in a state don't like it to the point where they feel that a new law against it is necessary to protect their rights to own and use their property as they wish, I think that's a damn legitimate reason to ban it. If that doesn't show that it's in the public's interest, I don't know what does. This is exactly what happened to junk faxers and this is exactly what should happen to spammers.
"what about people who don't mind receiving it,"
Two words: opt-in. Spam by definition is unsolicited.
Of course, if someone actually likes the spam they receive, they are perfectly free not to press charges. But their desire not to press charges shouldn't inhibit my desire to see them punished for the spam I received.
My hypothetical neighbor throws some pretty wild parties in his house and just about any stranger can come and do whatever they want there. Does that somehow mean I let those same strangers to the same at my house? Should the practices of my neighbor inhibit my ability to to use and protect my property as I see fit?
"or network and server operators who don't mind channeling it?"
They can find themselves named as accessories to the crime with their blatent disreguard of my property rights if they so wish. If they have a history of consciously turning a blind eye to spam if not actually promoting it, I see no reason for me not to name them in my complaint.
" As their users are free to choose to use or not use the ISPs services, if they choose to connect to their network then they agree to accept whatever spam whatever may come their way."
It's legitimate only if the potential customers are made well aware that this is the ISP's policy. And since most people in the spam trade already seem to have a great deal of difficulty in meeting truth-in-advertising requirements... Let's just say I'll believe it when I see it.
Re:Painful, yet obligatory joke... (Score:2)
Re:Painful, yet obligatory joke... (Score:2)
No, he got it right. It's supposed to be horribly-translated, remember.
Do what I do... (Score:2)
Re:So it's illegal to send ANY unsolicited mail? (Score:2)
That's the crucial distinction between junk snail mail and spam.
dave
NO TAX! (Score:2)