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Californian Court Fines Spammers $2 Million 151

Posted by timothy from the not-nearly-enough dept.
afra242 writes "The BBC News has reported that a Californian court has fined a marketing firm $2m for spamming via email. This judgement was the first anti-spam ruling and the marketing firm were fines for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails telling people how to spam. We're getting closer..." Other readers point to coverage of the judgement from the Associated Press (via SFGate) and from Reuters (via Yahoo!).
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Californian Court Fines Spammers $2 Million More

Californian Court Fines Spammers $2 Million

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  • $2 Million (Score:4, Funny)

    by r_glen ( 679664 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:31AM (#7307997)
    Great! When do I get my share?
    • It was the State of California that brought the lawsuit - so they get the proceeds.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • It is in this case. (Score:5, Informative)

        by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:49AM (#7308140) Homepage
        This takes out one spammer and shows some of the people who spam or thinking about spamming that they may get hit with fines and penalties.


        The money does get put into the state coffers. This is not like the RIAA who keeps the money for themselfs.

        • Re:It is in this case. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Gherald ( 682277 )
          > The money does get put into the state coffers. This is not like the RIAA who keeps the money for themselfs.

          You don't suppose the RIAA has coffers?
          • > The money does get put into the state coffers. This is not like the RIAA who keeps the money for themselfs.

            You don't suppose the RIAA has coffers?

            Yes, that's where they put the money they keep for themselves.
      • Parking fines? Does everyone that got hindered by the wrongly parked car get a cut?

        Littering fines? Do the people who had to walk that littered street get their cut?

        Speeding fines? Do the other people on the road that were endangered by the speeder get their cut?

        Those fines usually do two things. One, they help cover the costs of enforcing it (in this case, suing the spammer) and it acts as a public deterrant. I wouldn't compare that to the RIAA at all.

        Kjella
    • LA Times reported this this morning. Basicly, the pair have nothing in their name and are residing in Mexico. It is a Civil judgement so we can't extradite them:

      http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spam25oct2 5, 1,582808.story
      • Too bad there isn't some way to just present the judgement to Mexico as a gift from the US. Mexico can then collect it and keep whatever they recover.

        Or perhaps come up with some arrangement where we give Mexico a cut for collecting this judgement for the US. Mexico's cut could be like, 99 %.

        Of course, this will put ideas into Mexico, like maybe they should pass their own laws so that they can get their own $2 Million judgements against spammers. (Unless the US patented this law first.)
      • It should also be pointed out that the reason they lost and got fined was because they took the money they made spamming and ran. They didn't show up to defend themselves and lost the case by default.
  • I mean, hey, it's not ass-rape, but $2 million will do for starters.

  • People said... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IversenX ( 713302 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:46AM (#7308049) Homepage
    ...it wouldn't work. That fines wouldn't help.

    If rulings like this become everyday experiences, I honestly think the amount of spam will decrease.

    It will not solve the problem, however. There are ALOT of ideas for this, one of which is POP-Before-SMTP [sourceforge.net], which seems somewhat sane. But then again, they (more or less) all do. I find it highly unlikely that any of these n solutions will find wide acceptance and use, before at most a handful standardized ways are selected.

    Oh yes, and all your money are belong to us!
    • ...it wouldn't work. That fines wouldn't help.

      I would simply point out that the spammers still have their testicles intact.


      It will not solve the problem, however. There are ALOT of ideas for this, one of which is POP-Before-SMTP, which seems somewhat sane. ..... I find it highly unlikely that any of these n solutions will find wide acceptance and use

      I have some ideas for spammers that I would like to see implemented. And I would like to see them have wide acceptance and use.
    • The fines may not help in the long run (ie. cross international cases) but it does help set the stage for future lawsuits.

      The many, many methods for fighting spam are usually small and unnoticed by the public for good reason. If, say, Linux was to suddenly be forced onto the public (breaking the Windows monopoly), about what percentage do you think will be able to learn Linux -effectively-? In open source, free projects such as POP-Before-SMTP, you have about 1 programmer working on the project per 10-100

    • That's a standard thing on (good) mail servers. Mercury Mail uses it. EZMts uses it. You log in with your POP account which validates your IP. You then have a window to send e-mail from that IP address using the account e-mail address you logged into the pop3 account as. You can't log in to POP as BOB and then send mail as STEVE. Or log in to POP on IP 192.168.0.2 and then send e-mail on 192.168.0.3.

      It's the standard method to prevent unauthorized relaying, implemented and on by default in legitimate
      • This assumes you get your mail from the same server. I don't. This would be a total pain in the ass for me.
        • Frankly I think it would be best practice to check your email account given to you from your ISP. Like it or not its a line of communication that ISP's like to use to talk to their users.

          • I don't have an account, nor an ISP. My company ASSIGNED me an email account. I don't give a crap where my company gets its internet service from. In addition it looks ghetto to have business cards printed with @city.rr.com or whatever.

  • From the article... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by asparagus ( 29121 ) <koonce&gmail,com> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:47AM (#7308058) Homepage Journal
    The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin from owning or managing any business that advertises over the internet for 10 years.

    After 1 January, the state's anti-spam laws will get tougher and will also allow private individuals to sue spammers and collect damages of up to $1,000 per e-mail.

    That's a nice pair of little clauses there.

    The problem is that these guys were a perfect case: a pair of California spammers spamming people inside California using California computers. Methinks jurisdiction is going to be much more interesting when they try to go after out-of-state/country people. If they do so.

    However, it does send a nice message to the bastards. And if just one of 'em decides to not hit that 'send 50 million emails' button, that's a little win for the Internet. We gotta be happy with that, 'cause the government (as usual) is gonna keep the money to itself.

    • Re:From the article... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:33AM (#7308103) Homepage Journal
      Because it's a perfect case, it will be a nice precedent if it is appealed. I'd hate to have one of these appealed to the Supreme Court (on, say, free speech grounds) only to have it knocked back on some sort of technicality due to juridication.

      I do hope they appeal it, and that the Supreme Court affirms it. That will provide a basis for future laws testing out exactly what can and can't be banned.

      I consider spam to be more a case of impoliteness taken to the point of being criminal. Sending one unsolicited email to one person (say, fan mail) is generally considered OK, if impolite; sending billions of commercial ones is not. The courts have a delicate balance to draw, and I think the best way may be to solidify the clear-cut cases before trying to tackle the hard problems.

      • free speech my ass (Score:4, Informative)

        by zakezuke ( 229119 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @11:02AM (#7308181)
        I'm all for free speech, even in cases were I don't agree with the person's view point. The stormwatch neo-nazi group is one example of bozos and foofoo heads while I strongly disagree with them, I feel it's their right to make total asses out of them selves.

        At the same time, I reserve the right to censer what i'm exposed to, as a consumer I have every right to do this. To allow adverts of viagra and penis enlargements on the net should be considered free speech and protected under the law. However, spam in my inbox is steping over personal boundries. I accept advertisments as a way to pay for content I view, however spam is getting a free ride and providing income to people who are not associated with providing me e-mail.
        • As far as I recollect, the Supreme Court has made a perfectly clear distiction between "Free Speech" and "Commercial Speech". The later is not free, its freedom stops right at my inbox.
          And no, I feel I can not be forced to listen to anyone's views at my expense either. Publish it on your site? Print in in a paper? Whatever your heart desires. Walk into my house and speak? Put it into my inbox? Nope, no way.

          The parent post phrased this very well: Free Speech my Ass!

          Alex
      • California's anti-spam law has already been tested in the courts. In Ferguson vs. Friendfinder, the case was appealed on constitutionality grounds, and the California Court of Appeal for the First District ruled that the law was constitutional.

        So there.

      • Sending one unsolicited email to one person (say, fan mail) is generally considered OK, if impolite;

        I wouldn't even go that far. Sending an unsolicited advertisement to one person may be impolite, but something like fan mail, something written by one person, for one person; how is sending that e-mail impolite? That's like suggesting that phoning someone 'unsolicited' is impolite, or saying hello to someone 'unsolicited' is impolite. It's not.

    • Re:From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by espo812 ( 261758 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @11:38AM (#7308320)
      allow private individuals to sue spammers and collect damages of up to $1,000 per e-mail.

      That's a nice pair of little clauses there.
      How do you figure a fine of $1,000 per e-mail is a nice clause? One of the biggest complaints I have with the american justice system these days is a broad divsion between crimes and consequences (and in punishing responsibility for harm.) There is no way a single e-mail could cause $1,000 worth of damage. Thats an absurd punishment for a virtually victimless crime. Don't get me wrong, I hate spam as much as the next guy. However, there are technical means to alleviate the problem, and a huge fine is not reflective of the damage done.

      • Re:From the article... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DiveX ( 322721 ) <slashdotnewcontact@oasisofficepark.com> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @12:28PM (#7308567) Homepage
        What all other laws with statutory penalties?

        Cut down a tree in your own yard in many jurisdictions and you'll be paying out thousands in fines. Who is the victim there. Shouldn't you be allowed to cut down your own 200 year old oak tree if you want?

        Littering on the highway is victimless...right? That will get you a $500 minimum fine in some states.

        Junk faxes my only cost you a few pennies, but you can collect $500 from a company that sends it. The law prohibiting it has been around for over a decade. Every SINGLE federal court district that has hear issues of 'free speech' and junk faxing have denied the complaints. Commercial speech does NOT have the same protections nor should it.

        That fact is that such activity is not victimless. Admins have to constantly adjust and upgrade mail servers to try to stop the flow or manage the load. That costs time and money, and those costs are passed on to you and me.

        The only way to stop this kind of behavior is to make it no longer viable for them to do this. The Government doesn't have the resources, so a private right of action is the key. If it wasn't for those of use that take on telemarketers and junk faxers, I guarantee that it would be a much larger problem.
      • The problem is that to adequately punish the spammer, you have to know how many emails they sent out, how many of them bounced, and so on; Then you can make an estimate of what their spam actually cost people. Since the current email system does not allow for this, and any system which did is far too stifling for my taste anyway, I feel that this is the best solution. Spammers are quite simply not supposed to be spamming. Why not punish them? This isn't about damages, it's about punishment.
      • How do you figure a fine of $1,000 per e-mail is a nice clause? One of the biggest complaints I have with the american justice system these days is a broad divsion between crimes and consequences (and in punishing responsibility for harm.) There is no way a single e-mail could cause $1,000 worth of damage.

        Say, mail your preschool pupils very graphic bestiality porn using fake headers impersonating an innocent third party which suffers great harm? Very unlikely? Yes. But could it, under the most extreme of

      • Market prices versus damages and fines (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mec ( 14700 ) <mec@shout.net> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @01:00PM (#7308746) Journal
        The penalty for violating a law should be much larger than the cost of following the law. Otherwise, people just break the law for free, and only pay if they get caught.

        It's a separate argument whether a law is a good law in the first place. But if you believe, as I do, that spam should be illegal, then it's okay for the penalties to be a lot larger than actual damages.

        For example, go down to the grocery store and shoplift some bread, and then try to get out of the criminal penalties by offering to pay the $2 damages after you get caught.

        • The penalty for violating a law should be much larger than the cost of following the law.

          How many orders of magnitude of punishment beyond the origional damage do you want? Say a spam costs $1 (I'd say it costs about a cent, but for aguments sake I'll give you latitude.) A $1,000 fine is THREE orders of magnitude in punishment. That's insane. That's like sending someone to jail for 20-50 years for taking some cycles on a machine without permission. Punishment should appropriately match the offense, that

          • How many orders of magnitude of punishment beyond the origional damage do you want? Say a spam costs $1 (I'd say it costs about a cent, but for aguments sake I'll give you latitude.) A $1,000 fine is THREE orders of magnitude in punishment. That's insane.

            Ok, lets say it costs $.01 instead. And we should only allow a two order of magnatude fine? That's $0.10. Do you really think that is any kind of deterant? And that's the point. The fine isn't to recover damages as much as it is an attempt to offer

          • Re:Market prices versus damages and fines (Score:4, Insightful)

            by mec ( 14700 ) <mec@shout.net> on Saturday October 25, 2003 @07:59PM (#7311137) Journal
            How many orders of magnitude beyond the original damage do you want?

            A very good question. I want 2 to 3 orders, roughly. I figure that about 1% of all crimes get brought to prosecution, and I want to make the average penalty higher than the cost of following the law.

            As another poster said, the damage from spamming is usually more than 1 mail in 1 mailbox. If a spammer sends 1,000,000 messages, and they cause $0.01 of damage each (by assaulting other people's attention without permission), that's $10,000 in actual damage.

            That's a serious crime.

            But suppose I subscribe to some e-newsletter from Sony, and then I properly notify Sony that I don't want it any more, but they improperly keep sending it. How much damage am I suffering? $0.01 to $1, we agree. I'm willing to stipulate down close to $0.10. "2 to 3 orders of magnitude" means $10 to $100 for each offense, which seems reasonable to me if I have to actually take them to court.

            Punishment should appropriately match the offense, that is all.

            You know, this is why I like this discuession more than previous Slashdot discussions about spam laws. A lot of people are actually coming out and acknowledging that spammers are human beings; they have the same rights as other human beings; spamming is one crime among many; spamming should be treated in a coherent framework with other crimes.

            Honestly, there were days on Slashdot when it seemd like people wanted to punish spammers more than they would punish Osama Bin Laden.
      • This isn't about damage, it's about punishment. It has to hurt to do "victimless" crimes, else nobody will be kept from doing them. But maybe we could give them a choice: $1000 or a kick in the family jewels.

        And no matter if there are technical means to get rid of SPAM or not, even the fact that a single piece of SPAM takes my mind for even the shortest time of what I actually wanted to do, and the fact that those technical means will cost me at least time and probably money to set up and maintain already

      • I agree that, in many cases, the damages awarded are far from representative of actual damages. (Even actual damages + emotional damages) But, in cases like this, the actual award that reaches the hand of the prosecution, minus lawyer fees and minus compensatory time lost (the money you would have made if you were working your job instead of being in court) makes that $1000 unsatisfactory compensation.
      • Among them, there is restitution (making amends, usually paying back), but another purpose is deterrence, and well as punitive purposes.

        These fines are intended to server as a punitive measure, as well as a deterrent from further such actions from the charged as well as others with similar ideas - which is what we want to help in stopping spam.
    • Methinks jurisdiction is going to be much more interesting when they try to go after out-of-state/country people. If they do so.

      Not likely to be a problem here. Jurisdiction requires a presence of some sort in California (in this case). Doing business (or attempting to do business) in california is enough to trigger local jurisdiction.

      If you can prove that somebody (anybody Consider this: If I pay somebody to go down to your house and rip up all the trees in the yard, you still have jurisdiction agai

  • A Call To Arms... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...to our American brethren, since they have more guns than us and most of my spam seems to originate from the States... you see where I'm going with this? :)

    Post 9/11, folks were afraid to fly. When the infamous Washington Sniper was still at large, people would avoid the streets; they'd weave and dodge as they walked. With no disrespect to any of those involved, my point is that a couple of high-profile, well-publicised incidents generally scares people into modifying their behaviour if they feel they mi

  • 2 million is a molecule in the bucket (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:48AM (#7308062) Homepage

    Wow! $2,000,000 is 1/10,000 of one penny for each spam email. That'll stop him!

    Okay, that's an exaggeration. Maybe, because of this judgment, the spammer will become so poor he will have to stop having caviar flown in from Moscow.

    • Re:2 million is a molecule in the bucket (Score:4, Insightful)

      by aardvarkjoe ( 156801 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:16AM (#7308086)
      Don't be ridiculous. These spammers aren't rolling in money -- they might be making a decent living, but they're not multimillionaires from spamming. $2 Million is plenty to deter someone from spamming.

  • Closer to what? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by muffen ( 321442 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:52AM (#7308068)
    We're getting closer...

    Hmm... I like them being fined, and california needs the money, that's for sure.
    However, I wouldn't jump too high right now. I think we are just changing the game, not winning it. Here's an example [symantec.com] of what spammers are doing now.

    I believe whitelisting is one of the only way to go about stopping spam, but it has obvious problems associated.

    Ah well, atleast the government is doing something... 5 years too late.
    • > Hmm... I like them being fined, and
      > california needs the money, that's for sure.

      They'll be back.

    • However, I wouldn't jump too high right now. I think we are just changing the game, not winning it. Here's an example [link to Symantec info on a new trojan] of what spammers are doing now.

      No, that's great. It's wonderful that spammers are resorting to writing worms and trojans.

      Why?

      Because instead of civil action and various legal gray areas with sending spam, these bastards will have the FBI kick in their door one night and arrest them. No cute little civil proceedings attempting to discover whether o

  • Yes we are getting closer to the real solution... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Arcturax ( 454188 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @09:52AM (#7308069)
    Which is to sue not just the spammers, but the companies who hire them and ban their imports to the Unites States (or whatever country you are in) to punish those overseas who may be beyond the reach of a lawsuit. The latter may be harder to enforce as I am sure there are ways around it and not enough customs agents to check everything. But it might at least have some impact on domestic companies who hire spammers. The more countries that join in, the more impact it has overseas. Companies will soon learn that using spammers costs more than it makes. Dry up the demand for spammers and the problem goes away.

    • sue not just the spammers, but the companies who hire them and ban their imports to the Unites States

      Oh good! Then instead of hiring spammers to advertise their own products, companies will just hire'em to advertise their competitors' products. I wouldn't be surprised if that works out to be faster and cheaper than trying to push your own products.

      Not to mention the fact that often spammers are resellers of no-name crap products which could easily be relabelled and sold under a different name. Bann

      • Re:Yes we are getting closer to the real solution. (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Then instead of hiring spammers to advertise their own products, companies will just hire'em to advertise their competitors' products

        You're not giving enough credit to Law Enforcement agencies. That possibility would be studied very closely, and attempting to frame your competitors for commiting a felony is the sort of thing that's likely to make heads roll as high as the CEO level. Additionally the number of people that probably have to be involved would probably elevate it to some level of conspiracy
        • There's no doubt it would be considered as fraud, but how can you possibly know *who* authorized the spam, if the company being advertised says they had nothing to do with it? Even if the company had only one known major competitor, that wouldn't necessarily mean that the other company was necessarily responsible either.
      • Clearly, Company-A had to pay Spammer to spamvertise Company-B.

        Payment would be what must be traced.

        Spammers who do not want to be liable themselves, or at least completely liable, will have records of, and be able to identify exactly who paid them.
        • Spammers who do not want to be liable themselves, or at least completely liable, will have records of, and be able to identify exactly who paid them.
          That's assuming that you can actually find out the particular individual that happens to be the spammer. In practice, at best all you can often hope for is to find the company that is being advertised.
    • It's called a "Joe Job", and it's easy to do. Maybe a spammer doesn't like it when company XYZ calls to complain about the emails they've been getting. Therefore, next time around said spammer uses XYZ as the return address and also spams out "Buy product X from company XYZ" to the annoyance of thousands.

      Now, XYZ was never involved in spam, but if they were charged we've got a bunch of emails with their business name on it, and maybe even a phone-record that they called the spamming "advertiser" (even tho

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:12AM (#7308079)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:$1000 per e-mail? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by dattaway ( 3088 )
      isn't $1000 per e-mail a bit excessive?

      I believe that is more humane than capital punishment.

    • Re:$1000 per e-mail? (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by rokzy ( 687636 )
      the RIAA doesn't want $10,000 damages from each song, it wants 150,000.

      so the scale of punishment is still nowhere near comparable.

    • Re:$1000 per e-mail? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jfengel ( 409917 )
      I assume that it's at least partly punitive, and to make up for the fact that you'll be nailed for only a tiny fraction of the spams you send. Whether that's valid legal reasoning I'll leave to the lawyers.
      • I always find punitive damages a fascinating difference between the US and Canada (where we don't have them). It probably reduces the effectiveness of lawsuits as deterrents in some cases, but on the other hand I think we have a lot less frivolous law suits (why would you sue McDonald's for spilling coffee on yourself when the best you could possibly get is the cost of a new skirt and a little bit for pain and suffering?).
    • Maybe your time isn't worth anything, but mine is, and so is the fact that I can't tell valuable new business leads from penis-enlargement junk.

      The punishment has to make the crime unprofitable given the low percentage of people who will follow through on a complaint, or doing the crime and paying the fine will become a viable business model.

    • Re:$1000 per e-mail? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:52AM (#7308148)
      I come at this from an economics perspective. First, it would cost a fair bit in time to actually track down a spammer, but this really secondary. For the law to actually have a deterent effect, which is presumably what they are going for, there has to be a real economic consequence for breaking the law. Because the probability of an individual actually finding, suing and collecting from a spammer is so low, the fine has to be high to make the per spam cost high enough to be a deterent. The low probability of having to pay dilutes the actual monetary fine. The action of the RIAA (bastards) is similar. They don't want to spend the money to go after every shared file, so the damages they seek are high per song for that individual, but spread out over everyone they are just trying to make the risk of filesharing just high enough that most people won't do it. It screws some individuals, but makes the risk just high enough that I would rather use iTunes or buy a CD.
      The basis for these comments is an emerging study called behavioral economics. Steven Levitt at the U of Chicago has a number of fascinating papers that show how economics principles describe people's behavior even when $ is not directly involved. Definately worth a Google.
    • In order for it to be an effective deterrent, it should be somewhat excessive, don't you think?
    • Yes and no.
      A single spam isn't worth $1,000 of my time, however, if I should choose to sue and spend my time with a lawyer, a courtroom, etc... it could take *lots* of my time.

      I make $250 to $500 a day as a contractor, so if sueing a spammer takes more than 2 or 3 days (when I can't work) it *does* cost me $1,000.

      On top of that, the deterent has to be high. If the penalty was the time it takes to delete an email (at $30/hr) the fine would be too low to matter.

      That's my $0.0125 (I keep track of deals at d

    • The Federal Junk Fax Law provides for penalties of $500 for sending a junk fax. This punishment can be increased to as much as $1500, if the violation of the law was willful or knowing.

      I know that there's more of a problem with externalizing costs with a single junk fax than there is with a single spam e-mail, but in both cases, the punishment is orders of magnitude above the actual damages. That's because you're encouraging the public to take action on this themselves, and there's a significant amount

    • I believe the situation is slightly different. I have a problem with the RIAA for committing barratry. Excessive fines happen to be their method for this activity.

      However, I think that $1.000 is too high of a number. $10 or $100 would be more appropriate, taking into account network congestion, general hassle, and potential problems due to over-full mail-boxes. Of course, a class-action suit would make that $10-per-e-mail charge end up being an awful lot of money.

      The larger fines would, in many cases, be
    • This is slashdot, it's not meant to make sense

    • Scale (Score:2)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      A fine under $1000 is painful to many normal individuals. But a fine of $1000 is meaningless to many large operators.

      It's fine to say that spam is low-damage, but if it were $10/email you wouldn't get anywhere unless you collected together an awful lot of individuals in a class-action against the spammer.

      If you could wrangle $300 worth of your time from a spammer easily, it might satisfy you, but it wouldn't help the problem.

      Oh, and we're not just questioning the RIAA's action of suing people, the rea

  • One by One (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @10:27AM (#7308094) Homepage
    Perhaps state governments will never be able to stop one man spamming operations that are being run on a shoestring. But there has to be a starting point in fighting spammers, and it makes sense to pick out the largest targets possible. In one stroke, it appears that California has ended PW Marketing's business. And very likely, the state will come out ahead after the fines are paid.

    Perhaps the greatest asset that anti-spamming forces have going for them is that spammers don't have the foggiest idea where each of their spams are going to. Who knows whether joeblow@hotmail.com is an account based in California or Timbuktu? And that, I believe, will pose spammers with an insurmountable problem. They are going to have to make all their spams California-legal, because there's probably not a single spam list out there that doesn't target at least a few dozen people in California.

    Now clearly there will be some people who will say, "This law is unenforceable against offshore spammers." That's fine. The question is, do you want spams coming from both domestic and offshore spamhauses? Getting rid of spam sent within the United States will wipe out a large part of the problem; and not just in terms of numbers of spams sent. It will also disproportionately harm spammers with the greatest financial resources and the greatest technical expertise to overcome spam filters.

    On a side note, I've noticed that for the first time in memory, my daily spam load over the past couple of months hasn't gone up. There's blood in the water.

    • And the number of telemarketing phone calls I get each day has dropped since the inception of the national Do-not-call deadline. (There was a bit of back-and-forth on the legality of it between the three branches of government, but the industry voluntarily applied it anyway, just in case.)

      Now for the bad news: advertisers will turn to other media, and will be desperate for the access. This will raise the amount they're willing to pay for infomercial time, which will increase the TV stations' willingness
    • I think one point people keep coming back to is that the state of California might actually make money suing spammers. That would be a terrible idea. The point of the fine is not to make money for the government (however much they need it) but to stop the offending behavior for the benefit of the people. The government's legal costs are supported by taxes, not fines. Not that spending millions of dollars of government money appeals to me, but we as users of the Internet do see some benefit. Now ima

  • Money? Bah! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tarnin ( 639523 )
    Who cares about money this early in the game? What we should be caring about is presidence. If this runs though the court system, we can get a presidence that can later be used against other spammers. Thats the name of the game these days. Look at the DMCA. The only presidence it has now is that people settle before it gets challanged.

    Only draw back that I see comming from this an any other spam law is the eventual case of the gov/state/megacorp vs non-spammers. How soon will we be reading a story he

  • sh*t! (Score:1)

    by MoFoQ ( 584566 )
    I feel like I just won the lottery, except it might be better since tax code on compensation is different I believe.

    the spam cash cow has finally come MY way.

    (now I can buy solid gold pitchforks and flaming torches)

  • Keep in mind they didn't get finded for spamming (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MadAnthony02 ( 626886 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @11:13AM (#7308241)

    They didn't get find for sending spam per se, they got fined for sending spam with specific characteristics - specifically spam with forged headers, no opt-out, and routed through a bunch of hacked computers.

    Maybe this really doesn't make a difference, since most spam has those characteristics. While legitmate email addresses and not routing it through a ton of open relays would be nice, the opt-out part is useless, since almost everyone knows not to respond to op-out on spam, since it usually just results in more spam because they know it's an active address.

    • > They didn't get find for sending spam per
      > se, they got fined for sending spam with
      > specific characteristics - specifically
      > spam with forged headers, no opt-out, and
      > routed through a bunch of hacked computers.

      Yeah, kinda like that guy from "Laberia, Africa"? Heh. I get 2 emails a day trying to get me to help some guy smuggle money out of africa because of some coup in some freaky government.

      And why? Because I forgot to take my regular email addy out of my recently setup email accoun
    • They didn't get find for sending spam per se, they got fined for sending spam with specific characteristics - specifically spam with forged headers, no opt-out, and routed through a bunch of hacked computers.

      What really irks me is that they were nailed on the most innocuous of charges: mail labelling, when they broke into third-party computers, which is a much more serious transgression, and according to the USA Patriot Act, a potential capital crime.
    • And for the most part that is the best we can hope for. For example, with the postal service, we expect commercial letters to be sent through the postal service, with a valid return address, and a clear identification of who what the product is and who is selling it. We tolerate deceptive ads because we know that if it crosses a line, there will generally be consequences.

      With tele-marketers, we expect the same level of accountability. There should be a firm we can call. Tele-marketers in general do no

  • They hacked other mail-servers to send mail for them so it couldnt be traced back to them... Ah... wait a minute... I thought they were selling a physical object... a book on spamming.. which means they would have to have some place to be billed, and also a way to actually mail the book... Hmmm... guess we cant trace credit card purchases, balance transfers.. or US mail anymore.. wow. Musta been real hard to track down?
  • So basically, there are two possible outcomes for spammer trials
    • GET POOR QUICK
    • iow fines
    • ANUS ENLARGEMENT THROUGH NATURAL EXERCISE
    • iow prison

  • California open season on spammers starts Jan. 1 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Saturday October 25, 2003 @12:31PM (#7308592) Homepage
    Unless Congress passes a pro-spam law that overrides it, open season on spammers starts January 1. This win was under the old law. The new law simply makes spam illegal:
    • Business and Professions Code 17529.2.
      Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a person or entity may not do any of the following:

      (a) Initiate or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement from California or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement sent from California.

      (b) Initiate or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement to a California electronic mail address, or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement sent to a California electronic mail address.

    The important part is in the details.
    • Anybody in California can sue for $1000 per spam, up to $1,000,000 per incident. (Current law has a $50 limit. The new law makes it worthwhile to go to small claims court for a single spam.)
    • You can sue in small claims court for up to $10,000.
    • You can sue the advertiser, the "beneficiary" of the spam. So you find out where the money goes, and go after them.
    • If the spammer, the advertiser, or the recipient is in Californa, you can sue.
    • ISPs can sue.
    • Class actions are allowed.
    • There's a general provision in California law that anyone can "act as the attorney general" to enforce consumer laws in court, and that applies here.

    The key here is that you can go after the advertiser, not the spammer. You can find the advertiser by following the money. If you put in a credit card number, where does the transaction come out?

    Using an "internet billing service" like iBill won't help. They're actually the "merchant" in such cases. iBill is going to be involved in many spam lawsuits.

    The Direct Marketing Association is frantically lobbying Congress to override this before it goes into effect. S.877, which just passed the Senate, would kill the California law and replace it with a weaker one. But the House hasn't acted. Watch for any last-minute action at the end of the session.

  • That's all? No death penalty? They got off easy.
  • As much as you people criticize this, it is a step in the right direction. Like it or not, the spam problem isn't going away overnight - we need persistent, and relentless legal action.

    ~Knautilus
  • ...when the headline reads, "Spammer sent to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison."

  • The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin from owning or managing any business that advertises over the internet for 10 years.

    I would like to see this become a routine penalty, and to survive as such into an era when it has the effect of relegating the target to menial scrub labor.

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