WA Legislature Makes It Easier To Sue Spammers

jhylkema writes "According to the Seattle P-I, the Washington state legislature has unanimously passed a bill that makes it easier for spammers to be sued for $500 per message by allowing them to be sued in district ("the people's") court. This should put an end to the many problems that potential spam litigants have faced here. You can email Governor Locke here and ask him to sign it into law."

Comments

How do you deliver the subpoena?

[ObviousGuy]

You have to find the spammer first.

Does anyone have any insight into how you would go about finding enough information about the spammer to build a case? It seems like this would be the toughest part of the whole deal.

Re:How do you deliver the subpoena?

[tigerdream]

How does this work for spam that comes from foreign ISP's like China? This will fail because of the non-border reach of the internet. I wish it would work, but I am afraid it will just clog the courts.

Re:How do you deliver the subpoena?

[Peterl]

I haven't sued any spammers...yet.

If the spammer is stupid, they will put personal information (company phone/address, etc) in the email or in the domain registrations. You can also link things together by looking at informtion contained in places like SpamHaus and the various block lists. You can also call/email posing as a potential customer to get data. Company information can often be researched through state/county/city clerks offices (sometimes over the net).

I'm not sure how the process works exactly (any law-talking-folks want to jump in?), but I think once you have a lawsuit filed, you can use subpoenas to get info from ISPs, domain regsitrars, etc.

Here's a site that has some good info for WA specifically from somebody who has done this successfully. If this bill is signed, then some of the focus on small claims court will be unnecessary, but there's still good stuff here.

Zen and the Art of Small Claims

Re:How do you deliver the subpoena?

[Peterl]

If the spammer is operating out of someplace that has strong anti-spam laws, then you may be able to work something out, especially if you can enlist the aid of a local lawyer or the local law enforcement folks. I don't think that has been done so far, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

Otheriwse, your're probably SOL.

One thing to remember is that just beacuse the spam is sent from an open relay in Glubknowswhere, the person/company behind that spam may very well live in the US. If you can subpoena your way through the layers of misdirection, you may still be able to serve them with papers.

Re:How do you deliver the subpoena?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but there's no way to know if the person hiding behind an open relay is in as state outlawing spam. I wish they would just out law fraud :-), so I could get them jailed for using open relays, which to me is clearly fraud.

Re:How do you deliver the subpoena?

[Peterl]

It doesn't matter if they're in a state with an anti-spam law or not. For WA residents, anyway, it only matters that the spam was delivered to an email address of a WA resident. As long as the perp lives in the US or a place where the US legal system can be brought to bear, they can be sued.

Right after I got 200 new spam messages.

[zbowling]

Thank god. I get 200 messages every hour in my dump on random user names tried on my server before my computer bans that sender ("ZacBowling.com"). Its getting anoying. Maybe I could sue?

Re: Email govener locke

[SuperguyA1]

I can just imagine the flood of anti-spam email in Governor Locke's Inbox.

Sometimes irony is so ironic.

A couple of obvious points:

[DeComposer]

1.) If you do not live in the state of Washington, don't bother to email Gov. locke; he doesn't care about your opinion.

2.) If you do live in the state of Washington, there's probably not much point emailing Gov. Locke, anyway; the bill has passed unanimously in both the house and the senate. No governor is going to intentionally alienate 100% of his constituency.

OTOH, I'd feel better if his office had not declined to comment about his position...

Re:A couple of obvious points:

[cornflux]

Honestly, I wouldn't hold anything past Locke... he is the prototype for conniving politicians.

Re:A couple of obvious points:

[Kibo]

Why Tim Eyman I didn't know you read slashdot! Here's to voting you a horse's ass come november.

What's needed

[Sandman1971]

What's needed is not only the capability of suing the spammer, but also suing the business which hired the spammer in the first place (which is much easier to find than the spammer him/herself). This way, it would discourage companies from hiring spammers, since they themselves would be liable.

Re:What's needed

[jhylkema]

You can do exactly that. The law states that no person may conspire with another to spam.

Re:What's needed

[jhunsake]

But you have to prove that the business did conspire with the spammer, which is going to be very hard to do. You can't assume, however likely, that a business conspired with the spammer if the business's products or services appeared in the spam.

Break their legs

[Cryptoscopic]

It's cheaper than suing, you don't need to get involved with lawyers, it can be done anonymously, and once the word gets out, it'll be a hell of a disincentive.

Cats

[LOVE BOAT CAPTAIN]

If cats are so flammable why do they like to sit so close to the fireplace?! I mean WTF cant they just like snuggle with my spike strip and eat anthrax be good kitty and go lie down