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Alleged FL Spammers Agree To $1 Million Bonds

Posted by timothy on from the big-guilty-signs-around-their-necks dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Well, in this story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, two men were nailed by the FTC for sending out spam just to try to collect valid e-mail addresses and social security numbers, for resale to others. Another good reason just to simply forward the spam to uce@ftc.gov."

8 comments

  1. No Penalty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    These guys agreed to obey the law and "A $57,500 judgment against Roth was suspended." How will this stop future spammers? We need jail time. This wasn't even a slap on the wrist. They only have to pay the bond if they want to spam again. This is a green light to anyone who wants to spam. If you get caught, there's no penalty.

    1. Re:No Penalty by OneFix+at+Work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not really...as it stands, there's zero cost (besides bandwidth) for them to send out these e-mails...Imposing these fines increases the costs for them to continue this behaviour. Yes, they COULD do it again, but there are continuously diminishing returns for this behaviour...just wait and see what happens if they do it again...there will probably be jail time involved if it happens again...

    2. Re:No Penalty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please. Be real. There are about a jillion loopholes in that settlement. It's basically an admission by the FTC that they don't have enough evidence or enough force-of-law to do any real damage to these guys.

  2. Is that the best that we can do? by doug · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is insane. They committed fraud and don't get the book thrown at them. If it had been mail instead of email, they'd be on the way to prison right now.

    While I think that the victims are foolish (the old rule about something being too good to be true holds), that doesn't mean that these two bozos deserve to get off the hook so lightly.

    - doug

  3. Post Office by AtariAmarok · · Score: 1

    They'd be in plastic bags behind Newman's couch along with the undelivered mail.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  4. Spam pays, big time by Joe+Wagner · · Score: 3, Informative

    One million dollars eh? Recall the Wired article this summer of the bigger penis spammer the nets a half million or more a month. A million dollar bond often costs 5 to 10% of the value. So, for a couple days profits, that spammer is back up and running with FTC approval. And this is how Congress expects the CAN SPAM act to stop the madness? Sigh...

  5. Yep, fraud in my book. by Telemach · · Score: 1
    It seems that fraud using email is legal because the email system is far more invisible than post mail, but fraud should be fraud shouldn't it?

    If the law can't realize that fraud is just as important with email addresses as it is with legal tender, then there's never any hope for a decent spam bill, because it only goes to show they don't understand the technology or its importance enough.

    And that's not even mentioning the social security numbers...

  6. What the $*%&?!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sweet fucking SHIT! I had to read the article three times before I actually comprehended what happened! These guys set up a *fraudulent* website to collect people's *social security numbers* under *false fucking pretenses* and the government said "let us know before you do that *again*?"!! Okay, *NOW* who doesn't believe that the spam industry totally pwns the politicians in Florida?! Does the FTC know about this shit?! Will someone *PLEASE* move this story to the main page?!

    I swear to fucking shit, if I ever hear about one of these trials anywhere *near* me, someone's getting followed to their car after court.

    Oh wait, this is all gonna be legal January 1st, isn't it? Thanks, Washington!