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Beating the Spam Merchants

Posted by timothy on from the boilss-your-heart-cockles dept.

Crowbraid writes: "Well-written column by Margie Boule from the Portland Oregonian about an individual who got tired of getting spam, sued the company for $25 an email, and won." See also Bennett Haselton's anti-spam page, where he has details on "pursuing the anti-spam lawsuits on four separate fronts." (Those lawsuits were mentioned a few months back.)

6 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. $25 an e-mail?!? I'm rich! by Indras · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh my god, I'd better call my lawyer... I may already be a millionaire!

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    The speed of time is one second per second.
  2. Is this really a good idea? by HughsOnFirst · · Score: 4, Insightful
    This doesn't sound so good to me.
    Goliath then told the court, Harold says, "that when they get
    unsubscription messages, all their machine reads is the e-mail address. It
    can't read comments. Therefore they had never formed a contract with me,
    because they had never read my messages."

    Did this give Harold pause? "No. It made me angry. Who set up their
    machine, me or them? If they set up their machine to block
    communication, they are solely responsible for all communication that is
    blocked."

    I'm not sure I like the idea of being responsible for mail I don't read.
  3. Re:$25 an e-mail?!? I'm rich! by gorsh · · Score: 5, Funny

    Better yet, send out an e-mail to everyone telling them about this great money-making opportunity!

  4. Re:I would sue, but.... by dvdeug · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And I don't put my e-mail in public places where spammers would look to pick it up. As far as I'm concerned if you get spammed, it's your fault.

    I find it important that people reading my website can respond back to me. I don't see why me providing an email address so they can respond makes me at fault for getting spammed, any more than leaving a car in a parking lot while I shop makes me at fault for it getting stolen.

  5. Very cool by einTier · · Score: 4, Funny
    Now I've found out what to do while I'm unemployed. I'm currently sending a unsubscribe response to everyone that's currently spamming my three main email accounts, plus my two throwaway spam accounts. I'm including a link to this story and asking for a $25 reader's fee. I figure if any of them get past a few hundred dollars, I'll try legal action.


    Shouldn't take long.

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    -------------------------------------------------- $665.95 -- retail price of the beast.
  6. You don't contribute to OSS either, do you? by devphil · · Score: 4, Informative
    And I don't put my e-mail in public places where spammers would look to pick it up.

    Such as web archives of mailing lists for opensource projects? It must be nice to sit there handing out advice and calling people idiots when you never contribute to the community.

    Most of the spam I get is at an address harvested from mailing list archives for GCC, Doxygen, and few other much smaller projects. Does that mean I'm an idiot? If you think so, perhaps you shouldn't be using these programs (after all, an idiot has contributed to them).

    Does that mean I'm going to stop sending mail to a public mailing list? No, because as much as I'd like to reduce the amount of spam I get, I'd much rather see improved software.

    As far as I'm concerned if you get spammed, it's your fault. [...] But while spamming is still a problem, deal with it and don't be an idiot.

    Suing spammers is being an idiot? Huh?

    --
    You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)