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California Sues Spammer for $2 Million
KilroyTheVeg writes "The Mercury News reports that the California Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, filed suit against Internet marketer PW Marketing LLC, accusing the company of illegally spamming millions of Californians. The Story is here and the Sidney Morning Herald also has the story here.
The suit named PW Marketing LLC (note:subpoena in link is third one down the page) and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffins defendants in the suit which seeks "at least" $US2 million from them for allegedly flouting several state consumer protection laws banning spam mail. All I can say is Make 'em pay, it's the only way to hurt 'em where it counts." Update: 09/30 22:02 GMT by T : Note, that's Sydney Morning Herald.
All the poor guy did was spam
Just because he only steals a couple of cents from a million people, doesn't mean it's not theft.
What if we arrested multiple mailers to real mailboxes?
Well, if they forged stamps in an attempt to send millions envelopes, I'm sure you would.
You don't have to prosecute EVERY spammer to stop, or even slow, spam. Right now a lot of legitimate (as in, not illegal) businesses buy and sell e-mail addresses and send Spam. I would bet that a high majority (over 90%) comes from the same small group of companies.
So if one of the say, 10 companies gets sued for $2,000,000 and put out of business, don't you think that the other 9 will start looknig elsewhere?
And even if my 90% weren't true, and ALL spam is from random people, prosecuting one will still put the "fear of God" in them and many will think twice before sending any spam.
I'm a big proponent of making Spam illegal, and prosecuting spammers. I believe that it will cut down Spam significantly.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
It's called legal precedent. In other words, once you've gone through the pain and hassle of pushing one of these through court, then it makes it a whole lot easier to get the next one.
As to the "just one," I admit I haven't read the article on this one, but remember that these are usually SPAM services that put these things out. In other words, this isn't just one message we're talking about, but potentially thousands of "clients", each one with hundreds of thousands of individual emails to users in California. Sure, knock one out and a hundred more jump in to fill the gap, but if you can prove that it will cost you money to spam CA residents, then people will start thinking twice about all those get rich quick messages. A lot of other states are watching this case, and if CA can make it stick, there will be other states to follow.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
"All the poor guy did was spam!"
"What if we arrested multiple mailers to real mailboxes?"
Spam is totally different from mailers. It is free to take the time to empty my snail mailbox, but spamers can send files to my e-mail that I have to pay to download. This is why spam and fax spam is wrong: they both pass on unrequested costs to the receiver, and for stuff I didn't ask for!! I recently got some java-scripted spam that was over 5M! That is totally unacceptable.
Lawsuits working in conjunction with laws banning spam seem like the best legal (as in not illegal, NPI) way to teach folks that spaming is not a money-making business.
This has been my position all along. There's a lot of obstacles to going after unsolicited commercial email. The Direct Marketing Association quickly gets involved, since overly harsh penalties can excessively punish people that want to direct market to known consumers but screw up somehow. They have lobbying ability and tend to stifle legilslative debate.
And then there's the entire problem of *enforcement*. If I'm running a bulk emailing operation out of my basement and its now illegal, why don't I just rent a couple of systems in some foreign country where its not illegal that doesn't bother with a lot of American laws?
I'm far more convinced that if you put the effort into enforcing the current anti-fraud laws *now* on the books it would decimate the business that spammers need to stay spamming. The problem isn't UCE, the problem is fraud is going on unchecked on a massive scale and no one seems interested in stopping it.
is a cutting down of spam volume worth the general erosion of freedom and enforcement dollars that it will cost
Enforcement dollars perhaps, but there is no "erosion of freedom" associated with banning spam.
Every single bit of freedom that could possibly be "lost" was gone long ago, when other types of theft were made illegal.
Government has no right interfering in the business activities of spammers.
How about
"Government has no right interfering in the business activities of mafia."
Theft is illegal. Spam is theft.
Government has every right to "interefere" with such "business" activities.
Exactly! Insurance fraud, unlike spam, is clearly illegal, and there is already legal infrastructure to deal with it. We should just apply existing law and go after these people now, without waiting for new laws, or getting tied up in court trying to deal with new laws.
Actually, I think Libertarians beleive that one of the few valid functions of government is to enforce truth in advertising and truth in labeling, thus allowing consumers to make their own informed choices. Last time I checked, 90% of the SPAM I received was blatently lying about who it was from and lying about the subject to get my attention. This is and should be illegal, and I think even most Libertarians would agree. The basic principle is "You're freedom to swing you fist ends where my nose begins." SPAMMERS are wasting my time and money without my permission (not by force or coercion, but rather by deceit), thus they are effectively connecting with my nose, and their freedom should be limited.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney