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.

Comments

one of a million

[ilyahndre]

Its nice to see that a spammer is getting in trouble for the annoyance that they've caused. However, its one spammer, in one state, in one country. There are so many other spammers, how can destroying even one really make a difference?

If this were to start a trend however, it may help destroy spam comming from North America.

wanna make em pay?

[4444444]

All I can say is Make 'em pay, it's the only way to hurt 'em where it counts."

Just go to overture.com and put bulk email in the search and click on every link you see you will cost spammers several dollars per click the reason i didn't put a clickable link is because they can tell where your comming from and if they see 1000 people come from /. they won't charge the spammers

The Al Capone Approach

[GGardner]

My suspicion is that most of the worst spammers are slimy con-artists types, who run MLM scams, "make-money-fast" deals, and probably run their "business" on a cash-only basis. This old article, assuming it is true, shows the archetype: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/07/131825 2&mode=nested&tid=111

I bet that few of them report their ill-gotten gains to the IRS properly. Seems like one quick IRS operation could put a lot of them out of business in short order, without the need for any new laws to be carefully crafted or executed.

False slogan

[phsolide]

Libertarians have never enjoyed theft. Since email spam is theft (advertising is NOT protected speech, and even it were protected, I wouldn't have to pay to hear it), spammers are thieves, mere common criminals, not first amendment martyrs.

Try again, DMA troll.

Any word on who gets the Moolah?

[miracle69]

I have an email address that is currently based in California.

This doesn't seem to be a class-action suit, so who gets the cut?

bad link

[StuffYourReligion]

So you've updated the story once already, but maybe you should also add an "http://" before the URL for the "Sidney (sic) Morning Herald" link?

bork bork bork

Who gets the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, California is really going after the spammers to protect the people. The 2 million they are trying to get will go straight into their coffers (or pockets) so all they are doing is making themselves rich in the name of the people. Where did all the money from the tobacco lawsuits go? Certainly not into healthcare or education. It went to balance budgets and programs that states wanted to keep going.

I hate spam as much as the next person, but I'm not interested in seeing greedy states like California get rich off of our problems without solving them. If you think there is going to be even one less Email in your inbox after this then you are kidding yourself. In fact, there may be more spam to make up for the lost money.