fax.com Finally Fined $5M For Fax Spam

originalhack writes "If you are tired of getting calls in the middle of the night with nothing but a fax calling tone, you will celebrate this. Fax.com, who is well known for wardialing in their search for fax machines and for sending junk faxes, has finally actually been fined. The long arm of the law often moves slowly, here is the order. If you don't want to wait for the feds to stop your favorite junk faxer, you can try your luck in small claims. Federal law passed in 1991 (known as the TCPA) makes it illegal to send any material transmitted via facsimile that advertises the commercial availability or quality of any property, goods, or services which is transmitted to any person without that person's prior express invitation or permission. If the fax was deliberately sent to you (as most junk faxes are), Federal law entitles you to recover a minimum of $500 and, depending the judge's discretion, up to $1,500 for each such fax that you receive. More info at junkfax.org."

Comments

If only....

[nighty5]

we can apply the same fine structure for every junk email was receive......

Quote of the day

[tuxette]

From the ruling, #14:

We have no doubt that the TCPA provides more than such reasonable clarity and precision for persons of common intelligence.

It was appaling to read about fax.com's arrogance while reading through the ruling, though it really shouldn't surprise me. It's nice to see the law working.

Re:Finally something for the treehuggers to celebr

[AndroidCat]

I wonder.. It would be very surprising that they haven't tried spam already, either directly or through an "affiliate".

After all, the immorality or varying amounts of illegality of spam wouldn't slow them down compared to war-dialing for fax in the middle of the night.

Re:Yet again,

[EmagGeek]

Don't let this troll get to you. Our great nation was founded on the rule of law, and the TCPA was passed by people who were elected by The People. The whole purpose of The Government is to represent The People, and The People have spoken. The People do not want to receive Junk Faxes, and The People have the right to tell businesses so, and businesses must abide by those wishes. The whole reason the TCPA was enacted was because businesses ignored the Will of The People for too long, so The People invoked their sovreign rights given by The Constitution to compel business to listen.

Anyone who actually WANTS to receive junk faxes may certainly do so, and there's nothing stopping fax.com from sending faxes to those people. The People are not putting anyone out of business here, they are simply compelling a business to play by the rules.

"Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?!" --Walter Sobchak

Re:Yet again,

[SirFozzie]

If I had mod points, you would be a smoking crater.

Part of the free market is that the advertiser pays for the advertising. Faxing shifts the cost of the advertising to the recipient (in paper and ink).

If somebody agrees to receive this stuff, then there's no problem with it. That's a private contract between two parties.

Using your example, we shouldn't go after muggers because after all, they are part of the economy (redistribution of wealth, and hell, it'd create bodyguard jobs for wealthy people).

Tell you what.. I can visit your house in the middle of the night, and spray paint an advertisement for a local resturaunt on your window.. that is what junk faxers and spammers are doing. Using your property for their aggrandizement.

Get a clue.

Re:Why do Fax machines still exist

[Steve Franklin]

Because it's cheaper to have one main office fax machine than to give everyone with a computer a scanner.

Re:Why do Fax machines still exist

[gclef]

Think about what you're proposing here...you're proposing replacing a system that has only one device at each end (the fax machine), with a system that has, what, 4? 6? a dozen? machines in the chain between sender and reciever. That's orders of magnitude more likely to fail, which makes it a bad replacement.

Wardailing junk faxers

[b1t r0t]

At work, there was a bit of a problem with wardailing junk faxers about a year or two ago. What happened was the company upgraded its phone system to one which could automatically detect an incoming fax on your desk phone number, stick it in your voice mailbox, and let you redirect it to a fax machine or e-mail from voicemail. Oh, and the phone system was set up so that each desk got a real phone number, not an extension.

Kinda nice for sales types who are always on the road. Which would be great, except we were developers, who hardly ever even used fax at all. If we were lucky, the phone would ring, we would pick it up and, like, "beep beep beep" (thank you Ellen Feiss). The unlucky wouldn't be at their desk, it would get stored in voicemail, and their number would get registered as a "live fish", to be dialed again.

As a foulness shall ye know them.

[The I Shing]

I think I actually detest junk faxers more than spammers.

From what I've read of fax.com, they make spammers look like upstanding citizens.

The hubris of the junk faxers is beyond the pale. Their attitude is simply, "Try and stop us. We're making a lot of money. Fine us if you want, shut us down, we'll change our business name and continue. Just try and stop us, 'cause you can't."

That's an attitude that befits an organized crime operation, which is basically what fax.com is. They commit the same federal crime a hundred thousand times a day.

The $5M fine will have exactly zero impact on that company. They'll make that money back in a week.

What's needed is a permanent injunction barring any current or past employee or executive of fax.com from ever sending a fax again or ordering a fax sent under any circumstances. That way none of them can set up shop under a new name without being found in contempt of court and jailed. Actually, barring them from ever touching a computer or sending email would be good, too, just to keep them away from becoming spammers.

Someone out there is suing fax.com for something like 4 trillion dollars. That would be great to win, and would probably put fax.com out of business, but without an injunction against the people who run fax.com, they'll set up shop and start over again. These people are utterly intractable, and will stop jamming our fax machines under only two conditions... imprisonment or death.