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Fax-Spammers fax.com Sued For 2.2 Trillion
linuxwrangler writes "Fed up with junk faxes which have been illegal since 1991, a Silicon Valley businessman has launched a lawsuit against junk faxer fax.com. Steve Kirsch seeks the damages provided in the law: $500/fax for the last four years. If certified as a class-action on behalf of the 3 million receipients of the faxes that fax.com claims to send each day the total damages would reach 2.2 billion even without invoking the "triple-damages" clause for "willful" violations. Federal regulators hit fax.com with a 5.4 million fine just two weeks ago after the company ignored numerous warnings from the FCC and was found to be in "flagrant violation" of the law. Fax.com maintains that their actions are protected by the constitution and court decisions in this case could lay the foundation for the future of junk email regulation"
Suing a DOT com for 2.2 Trillion dollars...
;)
This isn't 1999
"Fax-Spammers fax.com Sued For 2.2 Trillion"
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Check out this letter I got after reporting one:
Mo Junk Fax Response
I was a little disappointed to say the least. This fax was hitting me every morning at 3am.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I wonder if there are any fax machines that can be programmed to block faxes from certain numbers, or by other identifying data.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
the poster made an error, but the link has $2.2 trillion as well. Yes, it is an insane number, but spaming with a fax is insane as well.
2) They could both be right, if linuxwrangler is British (sorry, too lazy to check), since on the west side of the pond a trillion is a million million, while on the east side, that number is called a 'billion' (which in my head makes more sense anyway)...
3) Either way, it's a helluva lot of money to be fined, and would [ probably | hopefully ] kill off the company involved...
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
Thank god that the first ammendment only gaurantees the right to speak, not the right to be heard!
2.2 billion x triple-damages = 6.6 billion from fax.com.
Estimated world population by US Census Bureau: 6,245,356,272
6,600,000,000 / 6,245,356,272 = 1.06
So, basically, that's enough to give every person in the world a dollar...or enough to get Worldcom back on their feet for another year or two!
"2.2 trillion....(pinkie)dollars.*snicker*"
Judge: Would the prosecution PLEASE refrain from doing that pinkie thing every single time? You're getting on my nerves...
spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail, news and spam.
Its a fine for not respecting the law and continuing to illegally fax-spam even after having been duly warned.
and its not just the paper: Its the toner, employee time to dispose and sift through all that crap, the busy fax-line preventing you from sending or recieving legitimate faxes.
Email spam is annoying and a bit time consumming, but on top of that fax-spam cosume ressources and reduce the availability of the fax machine for legitimate purposes.
At my old job we got dozens of faxes a day, most of them spam. We would often not recieve important documents faxed to us by clients because the machine was out of paper due to all the adds it spewed out.
The fine is not a compensation for those hurt, its a punitive measure meant to make it stop.
You can't take the sky from me...
The article says FAX.COM claims it send 3 million faxes per day. The lawsuit is for the last 4 years. At $500 per fax.
3,000,000*365*4*500 = 2.2 TRILLION DOLLARS.
And then theres the possibility for TRIPPLE DAMAGES if the judge rules the violations were willfull. It's completely up to the judge, but IMO (IANAL) FAX.COM's actions were blatantly willfull as defind by the relevant law. If convicted, not assessing triple damages would be a gift.
We have a fax machine. We've been getting junk faxes semi-reularly. With luck maybe we'll be getting a peice of the pie when this is over. I hope it's triple damages (grin), not that it would change the size of the check. I'm sure single damages is enough to bankrupt them nearly a million times over.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I'm probably feeding a troll. Oh well.
That's incorrect. The first amendment only guarantees you the right to free speech. It does not guarantee that you will be heard. Nobody has any legal obligation to listen to me. I have no right to use their resources to try to make them listen to me. The problem with junk faxing is that the faxer is using the faxee's resources (paper, toner, line time - and don't say that it's a flat rate per month, often a needed fax won't go through because a junk fax is taking the line). That has both direct and indirect costs to the faxee, which can be significant.
You may notice that fax.com is also a business. Many fax recipients are individuals. If you want to look at it as a conspiracy, at least realize that it's at least partially in favor of individuals.
funny munging
2.2T or 6.6T, while being the potential penalties the law specified, are naturally uncollectable.
One could, however, bankrupt the company and send a message to any other scumbag who thinks this is a good business model which is, of course, the goal.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Fines for spamming (of all types) need to be increased, with the possibility of jail time.
;- )
Harder fines, sure, but jail time? No.
I don't think putting people in jail for every stupid thing is a good idea. In fact, I think there are many "crimes" that should not be punished by jail time (how many pot heads really deserve to be in jail, seriously?).
Rapist, murderers, muggers, all those people deserve to be taken away from society for a while. But minor crimes, as annoying as they might be, don't warrent imprisonment. You could make 'em do community service, make 'em bankrupt with huge fines, but don't waste precious jail space for small things.
Plus, do you really want the spammers of the future to have aquired skills like fashionning weapons out of toothbrushes or how to take advantage of a dropped soap in the showers? You'd just make 'em angrier...although maybe the spam about penis enlargement would go away.
You can't take the sky from me...
But see, the problem with the faxes is that they are imposing their message upon us. Fine, they can express whatever they want through the 1st amendment, and whoever wants to listen can, and neither the broadcasters nor the listeners can be barred from doing so. However, people can also choose to not listen. But, by sending a fax to a person who does not want to listen to your message, you are forcefully making them listen to your message. This is an extension of expression that the 1st amendment does not cover. The first amendment was created as an agreement between people and the government - the government can not bar anyone from expressing themselves. However, junk faxes are between people and people (the company being composed of other people, executives, boards, etc) and the 1st amendment makes no guarantees that you have the right to express yourself to any other person. In fact, people deny the act of expression to other people every single day. Don't like where a conversation is going with another person? Walk away - you are not allowing them to express themselves to you. Don't like something you're reading? Throw it away - you are not allowing the author to express themselves to you. Even companies deny expression to employees every day. If you voice an opinion that the company doesn't like, they fire you - you are no longer allowed to express yourself to or at the company.
However, how can we deny expression by one company trying to fax us something while allowing expression by another company (or indivdual) trying to fax us something. We can't just simply walk away from the offending company (unplug the phone line) as that disables us from receiving expressions from others. Well, we could just contact the offending company and let them know that you no longer wish to allow them to express themselves to you, but my guess is that asking doesn't work (otherwise we shouldn't have a problem here). So, you need some way to bar them from expressing themselves to you... a government - which is the sum of all the people in the country, if the offending company wants to live in our country, they need to obey our standards and rules - is used. So, the government (who has the power) acts on behalf of the individual (who has no power) to enforce the wishes of the individual upon the offender. And the individual's wish is finally fulfilled.
The problem we now run into is that the offending companies try to spin the situation into an attack on their 1st amendment rights by the government. Instead of telling the public that the government action being taken (or attempt at being taken) is on behalf of another individual, they claim that the big government is just trying to shut them down while violating their 1st amendment rights. But, the truth of the matter is that the government is not even involved with the company, it is acting as an agent on behalf of the individual and solely represents the invidual.
The 1st amendment does not guarantee one party the right to forcefully deliver their message to another party, it simply guarantees that the government, acting on its own, can not deny a party the ability to express themselves to another party if both parties wish to be involved in the expression.
No. Junk faxes are illegal because it shifts costs onto the recipient.
Junk faxes use your paper / toner / ink, and tie up your fax line for other IMPORTANT business stuff. Paper / toner isn't free. The average cost on a business class laser fax is around 6 cents per page. Multiply that out by 10 spam faxes a day, 365 days a year, times the number of fax machines your business has. Factor in the potential lost business due to not being able to receive an important document.
Please inform us on all the technological measures to stop fax spam at the receiver.... Oh. There AREN'T any?
Your right to free speech ENDS at my door. You can deliver me all the bulk US mail you want, and I have the right to heat my house with it. I also have the right to call any telemarketers four letter words until they hang up (Telemarketing should be illegal as well. It's an intrusion on my peace and quiet. For now it's not, hpowever many sgtates are begining to enact laws that restrict it much more.) Email spam, like fax spam, also forces the cost on me as I am forced to pay for bandwidth / server storage. Yeah, it's not much, but it's getting MUCH worse, and the costs are starting to be significant. Spam was so bad for AT&T that it took their servers down for a couple days a few months back. 15% of all email on the net is now spam according to Gartner, and it's increasing at a rate of 5 fold per year.
This free speech argument is a red herring anyway. It's not Free as in beer, it's Free as in Freedom in content. Freedom of speech allows you to stand on a street corner and say pretty much anything you want. You can also publish a newsletter, put up a web site, etc. Basically, you are free to get your message out but there are reasonable limits. For example, free speech doesn't mean that Kinko's is required to provide you with free photocopies to get your message out. That's essentially what's happening with fax spam, or email spam, except that it's not Kinkos paying, it's YOU, and ME. So yeah, you have freedom of speech as long as you pay for ALL costs associated with getting your message out.
You might have run into an automated dialer that's waiting to put a recorded pitch into your voicemail/answering machine. Yes, these things are illegal (wardialing is illegal, and recorded pitches are illegal), and you can report them to the FTC.
:P)
Good luck trying to track them down in many instances just by the call - usually the bastards will not have any identifying info, and will just leave an 800 number (to get a great deal on FREE satillite TV, just call our sales agent at 800-xxx-xxxx
However, every little bit of info helps - let the FTC know you're pissed, and they can make a good case of how the system is being abused the next time they report to Congress. Who knows, maybe some bright young senator/representative might take this up as their cause...
Now, someone answer me this - why doesn't the Attorney General make this shit a criminal offense? If they're willing to put some pimply faced teen-ager away for sharing his taped copy of ST: TNG, why are they letting people who are attacking insturments of business and medicine (read the article, fax-spammers were wardialing and attacking hospital fax machines), in flagrant violation of a Federal law against such? Dual standards of justice and mismanaged priorities...
Kudos to Steve Kirsch for putting this issue into the spotlight. All we got to do is wait for the judge to allow class action status - start saving the fax-spams people!
3 trillion amount to less than is spent on social security. the US spends a WHOLE lot more than that
According to the Office of Management and Budget, total spending of the U.S. Fed. govt in fiscal year 2002 was $2.052 trillion.
(Slightly O/T) Has anyone else noticed that in the past year or so telemarketers have started leaving messages on answering machines? This seems to be an increasing trend. For instance, today I came home to find a 75-second solicitation for a trip to Disyneyland (apparently it's their 100th anniversary, according to the message) on the anwering machines for both lines in my house. Now, granted, this may not be a huge problem for most people, but I've actually had a number of occasions where my answering machine has filled up with telemarketer messages and caused me to miss "real" messages as a result. In my situation, and that of others who have similar problems, should I not be able to argue that the inconvenience of telemarketers (or at least their recent practice of leaving messages)is not "insignificant"? If I have a relatively limited amount of recording space on my digital answering machines and I'm getting numerous 60+ second advertisements every day, I think this is quite unfair, and a good example of the not-so-insignificant problems telemarketing perpetuates.
Then we should go forward and hack their web servers and deface their home page.
It must be legal. After all, if they can legally intrude our fax system and put messages on it, we can intrude their computers and put messages on them. Simple.
More evil idea that should be legal in California - maybe we can put an "opt-out" email address on the defaced web page that says "If you want to unsubscribe from the deface list, please email l337@yahoo.com with your full web page address"
Maybe all of us can set our spam filter to forward our spam emails to sales@fax.com...after all, it's protected free speech.
Title 47, Section 227(b) of the United States Code.
This law makes it illegal "to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine." The term "unsolicited advertisement'' is defined as "any material advertising the commercial availability or quality of any property, goods, or services which is transmitted to any person without that person's prior express invitation or permission." Damages are set at actual monetary damages, or $500, whichever is greater. The court may increase the damages up to three times this amount if it finds the defendant "willfully or knowingly" violated this law.
Under federal law, these unsolicited faxes are illegal, but fax advertisers simply ignore the law because few people know about and exercise their private right of action.
Jurisdiction
State courts are expressly given jurisdiction under 47 U.S.C. 227(b)(3). The following federal court cases have found that state courts have sole jurisdiction under this law:
International Science and Technology Institute, Inc. v. Inacom Communications, Inc., 106 F.3d 1146 (4th Cir. 1997)
Chair King, Inc. v. Houston Cellular Corporation, 1997 WL 768609 (5th Cir. 12/15/97);
Foxhall Realty Law Offices, Inc. v. Telecommunications Premium Services, LTD, 975 F.Supp. 329 (S.D.N.Y. 1997)
With luck maybe we'll be getting a piece of the pie when this is over.
The way these class action suits usually go, what you'll actually get is a coupon for $10 off the purchase of your next penis enlarger.
Evil is the money of root.
Seriously, at least twice a week I get these calls (and usually at around 3 or 4AM...). And I have never had a fax machine hooked up to my phone line. No fun. But that leads to the question: How does somebody without a fax machine, and therefore unable to read how to get off their list, get off their list? (Assuming of course that they actually take people off the list if they request. But being spammers I doubt it.)
I had a battle with fax.com a couple of years ago. By fluke i happened to find out who was ordering the spam. It was the Center for missing and exploited children. They were selling advertising to various people and trying to use the charity as a cover to do what is illegal to do commercially. (anti-telemarketing laws specifically exempt political and non-profits from laws governing them, but this does not apply to faxes).
So I complained to Sun and Computer Associates (the two biggest donors to the Center) and very quickly I got an appology from the center's director and the junk fax stopped. Until about 2 months ago when it started up again.
text of letter:
We are sorry that you have been inconvenienced
with the fax transmissions sent out by Fax.com.
If you will provide me with your fax numbers, I
will contact Fax.com and request that they remove
your numbers immediately from their database.
Our ability to use Fax.com to distribute posters
of missing children has been a great success and
has resulted in the recovery of a number of
missing children. We certainly understand your
request and will make every effort to stop the
transmissions to you when you provide me with your
fax numbers.
I am forwarding a copy of your fax message request
to Fax.com
--
Ben J. Ermini, Director
NCMEC Missing Children's Division
703-837-6236
and the response to my reply:
Thank you for your rapid response. I have directed Fax.com to remove your fax
number from their database.
Fax.com has assured us that all NCMEC poster fax transmissions are sent to fax
numbers that have agreed to participate in the poster distribution program.
We are sorry for any inconvenience that we have caused you.
Ben J. Ermini
---
so once again spammers lie. My fax is unlisted etc, and never opted into any such program.
sorry if this is long winded by fax spammers are even worse than email spammers in my book
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
I don't know the first thing about small claims court.
Does it cost me money up front? If so, forget it. I'm so broke, it would be more effective for me to cancel my phone service. haha
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Lincoln, being a small city, is still substantially large (100,000+), and what you are saying is very idealistic and lofty, but not very close to reality.
We have a guy here, he was a law student for several years (can't remember if he graduated or not). He can usually be found somewhere near the downtown Lincoln area with various politically or legally charged slogans written all over his clothing.
He writes the slogans on himself because he will be arrested for bothering people if he says them out loud. He will not discuss the sayings at length with you in public even if you ask him because he could be arrested as a protester. (Were you aware that protests are illegal unless registered with the city ahead of time?) He cannot stand in one place or he will be "impeding the flow of traffic" or some such crap. (or he is a protester again, take your pick). He cannot come to the same place every day either, or so I've heard.
The first amendment? It has no meaning in my city. Think it sounds odd? No one even notices this stuff unless they dig around, do some reading, or talk to odd people like this guy. I would venture to guess that most comparable cities (and ALL larger cities) have similar "reasons" to arrest people who are exercising their freedom to peacably assemble, or even their freedom to talk in public. It's an ugly world at times, and the ACLU is NOT going to save some poor, borderline homeless political outsider like this guy.
There's an FCC fact sheet on telemarketing that mentions that it's illegal for autodialer or recorded phones (which covers practically all telemarketing these days) to contact cell phones or any other phone for which the recipient is charged.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
This, along with the SMS thread from yesterday, raises an interesting point. What fax, email, and SMS spam have in common is that the reception is automated. If I get a telemarketing call, I can hang up before they've had a chance to deliver their message. But, by the time I see a fax or an email or a text message so I can make that decision, they've already sent the whole thing to me. The same problem comes up with recordings left on answering machines, it seems... I hadn't encountered that yet. (BTW, many digital answering machines allow you to set a limit on the length of the message recorded, so you can cut them off at 30 seconds.)
Freedom of speech is a guarantee that the government can't prevent you from communicating an idea except for under very specific circumstances where that idea is very likely to cause harm. It is NOT a guarantee that you can inundate any particular person with your communication. Most importantly, it is not an obligation on the part of the recipient to pay for your message (in paper, toner, tied up phone lines, time spent downloading, per message fees, etc.). Maybe we need a constitutional amendment that protects the individual's right to dispose of their resources how they see fit.
Junk snail mail is a different animal, because the cost of sending out the message is (1) non-trivial and (2) borne by the sender. Between printing and postage, they are spending several cents per message, which necessarily limits their willingness to send out mail to known unwilling folks. It also ensures that the practice will be limited to "legitimate" companies (or at the very least, ones with decent-sized budgets). The self-limiting mechanisms of traditional junk mail tend to keep it at a manageable level.
We do need to re-evaluate freedom of expression in light of automated message reception. It does change the scope and mechanism of free expression a great deal, as well as shifting the costs (monetary and non-monetary) onto the recipient. I don't think that's what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the first amendment.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?