Posted by
Hemos
on from the good-riddance-to-bad-rubish dept.
KjetilK writes "Ananova reports in an article that two spammers have been jailed for two years after sending 50 million e-mails. According to the story, 12,000 people bought their scam. May they be served SPAM every day in jail."
According to this page, Washington law sets the following as penalties for spam:
The law allows for damages to the recipient of $500 or actual damages, which ever is greater, for EACH MESSAGE received. The law also allows $1,000 or actual damages, which ever is greater, to the Internet Service Provider, for EACH MESSAGE received.
Internet Idiot Quotient (IIQ)
by
scotch
·
· Score: 4
Let's see, they sent out 50,000,000 emails, and
successfully suckered 12,000 people? This seems like a phenomenol hit rate - 1 in ~4100 or so. Considering many emails were probably never delivered, or rejected by filters, that's much better than I thought it would be. A sucker logs on every minute
Hate SPAM? Dont we all! Well now you can actually do something to prevent spamming! That's right, but this offer won't last forever, so act now before it's too late. For the introductory low, low price of only $19.95, you can rest assured that you will never receive another SPAM email again. Simply send your Visa or Mastercard number to this address. Hurry, before it's too late!
Penguins love Salmon, but hate the taste of SPAM. The Linux Pimp
Re:Is spam *really* that bad?
by
Zachary+Kessin
·
· Score: 4
Yes it is. The problem with arguing this from a free speach point of view is this. You are free to go stand on a soap box on a corner and rant about whatever you feal like, simmilarly you can make up flyers and post them around town. That is protected.
The problem is that if I send 10,000 emails or more via 1 ISP you have used a lot of the resources of that ISP. You have basicly made them support you free speach. Which you do not have the right to do. Similarly if you send a letter to the editor of a newspaper he does not have to print it. So while SPAM may cost you or me as end users a few seconds of time in the case of an ISP it may tie up a mail server for hours, during which time other emails are being delayed.
The other thing is that just because we are arresting spamers (And in this case it appears that fraud was what they were arrested for) it does not mean that we are not also hunting down Murderers and Rapists.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
-- Erlang Developer and podcaster
Re:Sadly, they were convicted of fraud, not spammi
by
Ralph+Wiggam
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· Score: 5
I sit across a very thin wall from the Pitney-Bowes machine you are referring too. It's a sweet machine but it has two problems that create human jobs stuffing envelopes: 1) It costs a half million bucks 2) It has major trouble doing fancy "non-standard" things that humans can do easily (like putting a card inside a folded letter).
Another thing keeping these machines out of normal office space is that it's about 25 feet long and runs at 90 decibles.
-B
Re:Is spam *really* that bad?
by
Tackhead
·
· Score: 4
(snip "spam iz free speach" argument)
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or to view any
unwanted communication, whatever its merit. . . We therefore categorically
reject the argument that a vendor has the right under the Constitution or
otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. . . We
repeat, the right of a mailer stops at the outer boundary of every person's
domain."
- United States Supreme Court, Rowan vs. U.S. Post Office, 1970
Whether or not you agree with me that spam is theft by trespass to chattel, the US Supreme Court has long since ruled that unsolicited commercial mailings -- even when paid for by the vendor (as opposed to spam, where the cost is borne by the recipient) is emphatically not afforded protection under the First Amendment.
Spam is not free speech. Hasn't been for 30 years. Now go away, troll, or I shall feed you a second time;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The only difference was that they ran it via email solicitation rather than by the more conventional classified ad route.
BTW, there are no jobs stuffing envelopes. Pitney-Bowes makes very nice envelope stuffing machines, which operate very efficiently in the >$.01 range.
Don Negro
Don Negro
Perl 6 will give you the big knob. -- Larry Wall
Spam Laws in the US, Europe, and beyond
According to this page, Washington law sets the following as penalties for spam:
Full text of the law is available.
XML causes global warming.
Penguins love Salmon, but hate the taste of SPAM. The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
The problem is that if I send 10,000 emails or more via 1 ISP you have used a lot of the resources of that ISP. You have basicly made them support you free speach. Which you do not have the right to do. Similarly if you send a letter to the editor of a newspaper he does not have to print it. So while SPAM may cost you or me as end users a few seconds of time in the case of an ISP it may tie up a mail server for hours, during which time other emails are being delayed.
The other thing is that just because we are arresting spamers (And in this case it appears that fraud was what they were arrested for) it does not mean that we are not also hunting down Murderers and Rapists.
The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I sit across a very thin wall from the Pitney-Bowes machine you are referring too. It's a sweet machine but it has two problems that create human jobs stuffing envelopes: 1) It costs a half million bucks 2) It has major trouble doing fancy "non-standard" things that humans can do easily (like putting a card inside a folded letter).
Another thing keeping these machines out of normal office space is that it's about 25 feet long and runs at 90 decibles.
-B
Spam is not free speech. Hasn't been for 30 years. Now go away, troll, or I shall feed you a second time ;-)