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AOL Awarded Millions in Spam Case

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the yeah-bay-bee dept.

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 ;)

4 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I never thought I'd say this... by Ponty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Google should take this thing over. by Animats · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Yet another duplicate story.

    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

  3. Re:What about the consumers by fmaxwell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Can we moderate stories now? by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.