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Californian Court Fines Spammers $2 Million
afra242 writes "The BBC News has reported that a Californian court has fined a marketing firm $2m for spamming via email. This judgement was the first anti-spam ruling and the marketing firm were fines for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails telling people how to spam. We're getting closer..." Other readers point to coverage of the judgement from the Associated Press (via SFGate) and from Reuters (via Yahoo!).
This is "FOR THE PEOPLE!" just like the RIAA sues people "FOR THE ARTISTS!". You get as much from California as the artists get from the RIAA - Nothing.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin from owning or managing any business that advertises over the internet for 10 years.
After 1 January, the state's anti-spam laws will get tougher and will also allow private individuals to sue spammers and collect damages of up to $1,000 per e-mail.
That's a nice pair of little clauses there.
The problem is that these guys were a perfect case: a pair of California spammers spamming people inside California using California computers. Methinks jurisdiction is going to be much more interesting when they try to go after out-of-state/country people. If they do so.
However, it does send a nice message to the bastards. And if just one of 'em decides to not hit that 'send 50 million emails' button, that's a little win for the Internet. We gotta be happy with that, 'cause the government (as usual) is gonna keep the money to itself.
We're getting closer...
Hmm... I like them being fined, and california needs the money, that's for sure.
However, I wouldn't jump too high right now. I think we are just changing the game, not winning it. Here's an example of what spammers are doing now.
I believe whitelisting is one of the only way to go about stopping spam, but it has obvious problems associated.
Ah well, atleast the government is doing something... 5 years too late.
Perhaps the greatest asset that anti-spamming forces have going for them is that spammers don't have the foggiest idea where each of their spams are going to. Who knows whether joeblow@hotmail.com is an account based in California or Timbuktu? And that, I believe, will pose spammers with an insurmountable problem. They are going to have to make all their spams California-legal, because there's probably not a single spam list out there that doesn't target at least a few dozen people in California.
Now clearly there will be some people who will say, "This law is unenforceable against offshore spammers." That's fine. The question is, do you want spams coming from both domestic and offshore spamhauses? Getting rid of spam sent within the United States will wipe out a large part of the problem; and not just in terms of numbers of spams sent. It will also disproportionately harm spammers with the greatest financial resources and the greatest technical expertise to overcome spam filters.
On a side note, I've noticed that for the first time in memory, my daily spam load over the past couple of months hasn't gone up. There's blood in the water.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Who cares about money this early in the game? What we should be caring about is presidence. If this runs though the court system, we can get a presidence that can later be used against other spammers. Thats the name of the game these days. Look at the DMCA. The only presidence it has now is that people settle before it gets challanged.
Only draw back that I see comming from this an any other spam law is the eventual case of the gov/state/megacorp vs non-spammers. How soon will we be reading a story here about one of those entities suing John Doe user for sending an unsolistied e-mail because he had a gripe? Lets just hope that when presidence does come its specific and not as far reaching and badly worded like the current digital laws.
They didn't get find for sending spam per se, they got fined for sending spam with specific characteristics - specifically spam with forged headers, no opt-out, and routed through a bunch of hacked computers.
Maybe this really doesn't make a difference, since most spam has those characteristics. While legitmate email addresses and not routing it through a ton of open relays would be nice, the opt-out part is useless, since almost everyone knows not to respond to op-out on spam, since it usually just results in more spam because they know it's an active address.
I have blog like everyone else
> The money does get put into the state coffers. This is not like the RIAA who keeps the money for themselfs.
You don't suppose the RIAA has coffers?
The unofficial
The penalty for violating a law should be much larger than the cost of following the law. Otherwise, people just break the law for free, and only pay if they get caught.
It's a separate argument whether a law is a good law in the first place. But if you believe, as I do, that spam should be illegal, then it's okay for the penalties to be a lot larger than actual damages.
For example, go down to the grocery store and shoplift some bread, and then try to get out of the criminal penalties by offering to pay the $2 damages after you get caught.