Australian Spammer Sues Back

Vilorman writes: "We've all heard the one about the spammers begin sued. Now, an Ausie spammer is suing back, for being blacklisted. Claiming damages and equipment replacement costs and so on. The whole article is over at Yahoo. So, I guess now, not only are we subjected to the spam, but we can't block it either?"

Comments

Free speech

[jdavidb]

I'm usually an extreme free speech advocate. I've even been known to argue for the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. That said, free speech gives you the right to speak, not the right to force someone to hear you, and certainly not the right to force someone else to bear the cost of publication. The newspaper editor doesn't have to pay to publish your letter, Rob Malda and andover.net don't have to pay to let you post your comment, and I don't have to pay to download your spam. And free speech also means the other guy has a right to say, "Don't listen to this guy; he's a knucklehead." (or "don't accept IP traffic from this host, it's a spammer")

Re:not so crazy?

[TheTrunkDr.]

Well I hope to god this is intentional flamebait. Being blacklisted causes no damage to any equipment, most of what these guys are after is rediculous.

$7,907 (AU$14,000) for replacing blocked or compromised IP numbers, $2,683 (AU$4,750) for labor costs of technicians to establish an alternative e-mail system, $2,824 (AU$5,000) to purchase a new server computer and $11,296 (AU$20,000) for loss of income it claims to have incurred over a 20-day waiting period

hmm last I knew it didn't cost $8k to get a new ip?!?! technicians?!? for what changing an ip on a server, nevermind about buying a new server, and if their isp takes 20 days to issue a new ip, they should be sueing their isp! I've worked at a company that got blackballed for relaying mail way back when spammers just started bouncing mail around, once we discovered the problem it was literally, turn off relaying - 5 minutes(max), get new ip from isp - one phone call (about 10 minutes), reassign ip and reboot server - 10 minutes. This is a ton of horsecrap, nevermind the fact that they're stealling people's bandwidth for sending unsolicited unwanted e-mail, I pay for it and get your crap off of it!!