Slashdot Mirror
AOL Awarded Millions in Spam Case
c.derby writes "MSNBC.com is running a story that says: " A Virginia federal court awarded America Online nearly $7 million in damages as part of the Internet service providers' legal victory over a junk e-mail operation, AOL said Monday."
The company said the legal decision should send a warning to junk e-mailers.
"This is an important legal victory in the fight against spam," Randall Boe, AOL general counsel, said in a statement. "It sends a clear, distinct message to spammers: AOL is prepared to use all of the legal and technological tools available to shut down spammers."
" 145 pieces of spam so far today. Can I have a piece of the 7 million? (oops, duplicate. Oh well. It's still good ;)
Uh, doesn't the fact that hotmail accounts that are unused get tons of spam suggest that they're not listening to their customers as much as they are selling their customer lists to spammers?
That's, to me, decidedly not a Good Thing.
Maybe, when VA Whatever finally goes bust, Slashdot will be taken over by Google News and totally automated. That might be an improvement.
It wouldn't be hard. Google News can pick stories and can tell which articles go together. Just provide a set of selection criteria that match previous Slashdot history, and let it feed the Slashdot story engine.
When this machine learns your job, what are you going to do? - bus poster, 1970s
Yes, the exact same story was posted yesterday, but obviously there is method in their madness. Since the first story came out at 5 PM (CST), I'm assuming that the East Coast had already gone home for the day.
/. reposts a story, realize that there are those that are less fortunate... :)
That same story of course would still be "fresh" for the Westies. So, in getting around this whole we-live-left-to-right instead of north-to-south issue, we need to repost some stories from time to time. Naturally, a good, fresh story that has gone "stale", may be, reposted to let those Easties catch up with the rest of us.
I'm sure there is an algorith that could take in the time it was posted, time left to view in the normal working hours, etc.
So the next time
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
The AOL users are the ones who were injured by all this spam, why is the money going to AOL and not distributed to all of it's user base in the past 4 years.
answer 1: Because the users did not press a lawsuit.
answer 2: The spam injured AOL by increasing their operating costs while driving away users.
answer 3: AOL has approximately 35 million users. The $7 million equals about 20 cents per user. After subtracting the legal expenses, postage, and costs to print and process 35 million checks, how much would be left? (hint: it's a negative number). Do the math before you post next time.
I wholeheartedly agree.
I have to sit here and look at dupes like this, and have my own submission rejected; a submission about a new law in Egypt slapping a 3 year mandatory jail term on anyone using encrypted e-mail, and a new law also criminalising wireless networking.
Oh I wholeheartedly agree.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
I realize that Rob & the rest of the crew just want to post what they're interested in reading
I'm sorry but this argument hasn't held water since they started receiving compensation for the site well above and beyond the normal running costs. As the product (which we are since this is now an AD based, subscription and "eyes on" site) we are allowing ourselves to be exploited by continuining to approve of this behaviour and even encourage it with statements like the one above.
Not trying to single you out, but this argument gets paraded everytime they do shoddy work. All I know is I would never hire any of these guys (asside from Timothy) to work on any of my critical systems. They just don't care enough about their own work.
--- I do not moderate.
duh! - but it doesn't mean that it didn't hurt(annoy) them too.
I never said that the users were not annoyed. I simply said that their failure to file the lawsuit is why they have will not get money from the lawsuit.
I think AOL should also sue Amazon for all those extra emails its sending out to its users (again being cynical here)
Amazon does e-mail marketing right. It's an opt-in system. They send e-mails to people with whom they have an existing business relationship. The e-mails are sent from Amazon's servers, not some open relay in Korea. The e-mails include "unsubscribe" instructions that actually work. Amazon, to the best of my knowledge (and tracking) does not sell the e-mail addresses.
The whole idea of the original comment was a rant that although this may be a victory against spam it does not help all those people who were hurt by spam.
The spammer in question is unlikely to continue spamming AOL's users after that crippling loss. It is also likely that potential spammers, having seen news of the $7 million award, will reconsider their "business plan" and that will further reduce the amount of spam that pollutes the Internet in general. I see this as a big help to users.