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Earthlink Wins Another Spam Award: $16 million
linuxwrangler writes "U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. awarded Earthlink $16 million and an injunction against Howard Carmack for Carmack's use of Earthlink to deliver spam. Given that Earthlink is still awaiting payment of the $25 million it won against Kahn C. Smith last year, it views the injunction as the bigger of the two wins." A few more of these, and maybe the tide of spam will eb. Maybe. Nah.
I used to believe that legal remedies couldn't stop things like spam, but I think I was wrong.
The very fact that spam is only a problem when it's on a large scale (don't think about recieving on a large scale, think that the list has to be large...) means, I think, that legal solutions can prevail.
arete
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Seeing as how these spammers probably DON'T have millions of dollars in the bank, and even Microsoft was able to negotiate for penalties being only in software, is Earthlink likely to get a truck load of $16M of penile enhancement cream and Nigerian banknotes in compensation?
This guy used his relative's info for setting up accounts. When Earthlink talked to his 58 year old retired uncle, they figured out what was going on when he mentioned a nephew that works at home w/ computers. (I read the Wall Street Journal. Headline news!)
This guy is way out there
Last year the company was awarded $25 million in damages in a suit against another big junk e-mailer, Kahn C. Smith of Tennessee. Youngblood said the company hasn't collected that award. But the monetary award, Wellborn said, is less of a victory than the injunction.
Nobody will ever collect civil damages from a spammer, because the vast majority of spam does not come from legitimate companies with assets. Most spammers tend to be individuals: low-rent sleazebags with bad credit and a history of illegal or borderline illegal activities. If they actually had millions of dollars they wouldn't stoop to spamming.
The injunction is a good thing because if one of these lowlifes tries spamming again, they can throw him in jail.
Carmack and others kept the bulk e-mail flowing through Internet accounts opened with stolen identities and credit card numbers.
Considering this and the fact that he didn't even show up to defend himself in court, why bother obeying the injuction? They don't arrest people for this stuff anymore?
Obviously Earthlink isn't going to get $16 mil out of this. I take it verizon didn't collect on their $6.9 million judgement either.
If you live in states with anti-spamming laws you may be able to sue the spammers. Not for millions of dollars however.
In Washington state we are allowed to sue for up to $500.00 per spam. However, the spammer must do something like give a false return address or misleading subject line.
You should check your state laws.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
If you live in states with anti-spamming laws you may be able to sue the spammers. Not for millions of dollars however.
In Washington state we are allowed to sue for up to $500.00 per spam. However, the spammer must do something like give a false return address or misleading subject line.
Considering the amount of spam I get (sometimes hundreds per day, and I'm sure that's not an unusual amount), and the fact that 90%+ of them have fake return addresses, at $500 per spam I probably could sue for millions.
Karma: Excellent (In Soviet Russia, karma pimps YOU)
So, spam does cost the recipient money, not only in terms of bandwidth, CPU time, storage, download time, frustration, irritation, etc., but also in all the unrecovered costs of prosecuting, persuing, and attempting to collect on the judgement. Customers may not directly pay for all of that, but their monthly rates reflect all those costs.
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Originally, he was buying hosting from several US ISPs, including Rackspace. We asked the ISPs to identify the site owner, as required by law (because he accepts credit cards) and when they found they didn't have good info on him, they killed his accounts. He was using about five ISPs at a time, and had his own DNS server so that he could quickly switch from one ISP to another as he was kicked off. The spam itself went out via open Telnet proxies. Whois info is plausible, but fake.
This seemed like a big-time operator, but over time, a different picture emerged. It became clear that this guy's business isn't porno. It's collecting credit card numbers. The porno sites were very shallow. ISP operators told us they were typically $5/month hosting sites with maybe 1MB of content. Some of the web sites were purchased with bad credit card numbers.
This guy kept coming back, typically buying bottom-level hosting through resellers. He tried a hosting service in Mayalasia and got kicked off. He tried one in Brazil and got kicked off. He tried a "bulk friendly" ISP in the US and got kicked off. Finally, he ended up with everything on a server in St. Petersburg, Russia. It took a few days, but he's been kicked off there, too.
We have some hints of who he is. We've spoken to some people he's dealt with. When we get a solid ID, we'll go after him for trademark infringement.
It's possible to win these things. It's time consuming, but persist. Trace where the money goes, not where the spam comes from. Follow up daily. Half an hour a day keeps the spammers away.
The WSJ article today goes into some detail about the arduous chase with little pay-off. Earthlink must have some really dedicated anti-spam activists to even try this. Think they are getting big bucks? Hardly. From the WSJ:
And it involves a lot of grunt work per spammer. How much is your time worth? It's like "The Cuckoo's Egg" story again. For just this one guy, for example:
Unless we start seeing some high-profile jail time, there won't be much of a victory.
The WSJ article said he'd used 350 stolen identities and credit cards to set up accounts. We've got the laws we need to put people in jail for credit card fraud -- so why is he at home avoiding phone calls?
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal -- Jello Biafra
Without knowing what he charged his customers, his fine doesn't seem all that large.
I think it's about time ISP's started charging for each e-mail both sent and received, somewhat like stamps. Something tells me the elasticity looks very vertical in this market and a small cost will do wonders for reducing spam.
In Washington state we are allowed to sue for up to $500.00 per spam.
Actually, it's not up to $500, but exactly $500, or actual damages - whichever is greater.
See here.
-- Jeff
I'm a minister!
If they don't, then they shouldn't have sued in the first place.
Monetary awards are not the only reason for suing somebody (although going into court without a monetary interest can confuse the best of judges..). Here in BC there are many cases of companies going to court go get injunctions against protestors, etc. Although the injunctions are nominally interlocutory (until the case properly goes to court), they often stop prosecuting the case after the injunction is granted (i.e. the injunction is the only reason why they filed the injunction. I was actually surprised to find that they actually proceeded with one of these cases and got a ($6000) award.
Although they seem to have little hope of collecting on the $16M award, the fact that they can have these people arrested for violating the injunction can probably save them thousands of dollars in human an hardware costs.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I'm starting to believe that the SPAM problem is more of an educational issue now. I've used two different programs that have been highly effective against SPAM (spamnet and POPFile). I use POPFile exclusively now, and I've almost forgotten what SPAM is. Yes, it's still a major problem for users out there (especially those using web-based clients), but there is highly effective technology out there to counter it. We don't need to launch costly and ungainly legal offensives against spammers - we already have software that can render them irrelevant.
While "grammar nazis" seem like a PITA, their presence does help make the comments on /. better spelled. While my "grammar" might not always be the best, I at least paste into OpenOffice and spell-check so as not to look like some completely ignorant fool.
Yes, "grammar nazis" can be annoying, but they do serve a purpose.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
Speaking from a front line position in certain corporations *coughs* phone monkey *coughs* in no way represents any corporations opinion (just what I see at the job)
I'd say besides connection issues...
Spam and pop ups tend to be the most irritating thing about the internet to those unfamiliar with it in general... I'm quite sure it's caused plenty of customers to cancel regardless of quality of service of the connection or the quality of customer service of any company...
Not only the cancelation but the support of the end user with these issues also costs money. Running 24/7 tech support with MSN, Earthlink, AOL or any major ISP...
1800 systems don't come cheap. Money is measured in minutes.
When 50% of your calls are due to spam and pop ups... With the rest as connection issues... If somehow you can kill the reason that the end user has to call in you already saved yourself a ton of money.
Of course I've talked with people who wanted to cancel their internet because they saw a banner ad saying "You are broad casting you IP!!"
Explaining the nature of pop up ads to the user is one thing, but when they are highjacked by Xupiter, Newdotnet, or "insert your spyware of the week" it's hard to understand from their end... Not to mention those same programs will cause IE to DIE! on say Windows computer if the program itself dies. (I'd say Newdotnet is horrible for that if it eats your wsock32.dll in win98... and embedds itself all over the registry... no web pages for you...)
Heck if I know how it gets on their computers.
"Do you have Kazaa on your computer?"
Usually the answer is "yes"
Personally, I'd like to see a few ISP companies go after these Spyware companies... Sure the end user can't sue because they agreed to a EULA but it often costs their ISP large sums money in terms of support costs...
Basically, spammers make money because some "John Doe", who does not know any better is buying their stuff. If no one clicked through and bought their stuff, it would just fizzle out. But hopefully these huge settlements will scare the "casual" ass, I mean "mass e-mail marketer" out of the "business" and the rest will be sued into oblivion. IMHO, the crux of this matter will be proving that someone either did or did not "opt-in" on some website somewhere with some "checked tiny ass checkbox" located on many websites. "I did not sign up for that", yes you did, on this date at this time. On the other hand, if you contacted them and they did not stop sending you things, then you should have a legal ground.
Moral is: do not buy their wares, and scrutinize all websites that ask for you e-mail address, read the privacy policies, and make sure you do not inadvertantly sign up for mail from "affiliates".
I hate sigs.
This is why I host my own e-mail server. It is FAR easyer to block unwanted spam than to have no control of my ISPs based e-mail account. SPAM has to be rejected at the mail server, accepting the e-mail and then filtering it out with your e-mail client does no good at all. It will be interesting to see if any of these SPAMers ever pay up.
Maybe when hell freezes over SPAMers will finally catch a clue...nahhh, I doubt it..
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
I'm just putting the finishing touches to my sure fire way of avoiding court fines, something that I am willing to share for a mere £100. Could all slashdotters please help me in this noble enterprise by sending me the email addresses of all the spammers that they know.
Couldn't they bend 'spam' into a legally actionable offense by calling it 'terrorism'?
I know the idea of a site that sells penis enlarging devices and offers college degrees for $19.95, terrorizes me.
It's both a matter of principle and spam does have a financial and quality of service impact on companies and consumers.
In order to dodge spam, companies/consumers have to either spend the time manually deleting spam or put out the money to buy software to filter spam. In both these cases, spam still eats bandwidth.
Companies also have to be careful (i.e., spend time/money) that software filters do not delete legitimate email, as this could potentially have a severe imapact on their business dealings, service record, etc.
Finally, the burden of spam should fall on those responsible for it, not those that are "victimized" by it. So let's still nail the spammers.
You're missing an important point. Even if you don't see your spam anymore, you're still paying for it. Spam is a major part of your bandwidth bill - why are you and I paying for their actions?
The problem with this argument is that even if we all ran Bayesian Filters and blocked 99.9% of all spam messages from hitting our inboxes there would still be billions of messages going back an forth between mail servers before they are caught by the filters. This is a major drag on Internet bandwidth even if all of us never actually saw another spam in our inboxes ever again. These people who abuse their network privileges and degrade the network for the rest of us should be caught and punished for their behavior. Another thing that would really help is for slashdot people to advocate proper mail server configuration, including disallowing open relays, and education of all of the part-time mail sysadmins out there who perpetuate the problem with their own ineptness. There are groups already trying to do these things and it is helping, but it will take much more work on the part of mail admins and users to shut the spammers down for good.
Why not go after these people for real crimes and send them to the slammer, confiscate their equipment, and all that other stuff the FBI loves to do? Also gotta figure if these guys are making any money, their probably violating some IRS law, so send more feds after them.
Bah... until judges and politicans actually grow up around this stuff, or have to answer their own emails, they'll never pursue it.
I bet when Bill Gates kids start getting spam, we'll see some radical solutions.
A couple of months ago she came and talked to me about how to set up a bulk email thing and I thought I'd succeeded in persuading her that it was a seriously bad idea and she shouldn't do it. Apparently I hadn't; last night she told me she'd started sending bulk UCE.
This isn't someone whom I'd describe as sleazy, and it isn't someone who's stupid. It's someone who is desperate. I think you will find a lot of spammers are.
The problem can be tackled, it seems to me, at two levels. Yes, if there's legislation (particularly if it has real teeth) then peopel will get a good clue that this is not a good thing to do. But it also needs there to be a professional ethic among systems and network administrators that we will not allow the infrastructure we control to be used for this sort of thing, and that we will kick offenders off and cancel accounts; and that if our management say different we will refuse to work for them - a sort of hypocratic oath for geeks.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Earthlink is not getting a penny, I live in Buffalo, NY (the home and base of operations of Carmack). Our Hometown News station went to his CRAPPY APARTMENT above his parents house yesterday. He lives in a pretty bad part of town, which isnot so strange since most of Buffalo is a "bad part of town". He definately wasn't making the big bucks.