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!).

Comments

From the article...

[asparagus]

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.

Re:From the article...

[jfengel]

Because it's a perfect case, it will be a nice precedent if it is appealed. I'd hate to have one of these appealed to the Supreme Court (on, say, free speech grounds) only to have it knocked back on some sort of technicality due to juridication.

I do hope they appeal it, and that the Supreme Court affirms it. That will provide a basis for future laws testing out exactly what can and can't be banned.

I consider spam to be more a case of impoliteness taken to the point of being criminal. Sending one unsolicited email to one person (say, fan mail) is generally considered OK, if impolite; sending billions of commercial ones is not. The courts have a delicate balance to draw, and I think the best way may be to solidify the clear-cut cases before trying to tackle the hard problems.

Closer to what?

[muffen]

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.

One by One

[Schlemphfer]

Perhaps state governments will never be able to stop one man spamming operations that are being run on a shoestring. But there has to be a starting point in fighting spammers, and it makes sense to pick out the largest targets possible. In one stroke, it appears that California has ended PW Marketing's business. And very likely, the state will come out ahead after the fines are paid.

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.