Federal Bounty on Spammers

Portigui writes "CNN is reporting that the FTC is considering imposing a bounty on spammers. They are guessing it would take between $100,000 to $250,000 to get people to rat out their friends, coworkers, etc... Interstingly enough is that it is 'higher than rewards in most high-profile criminal and terrorism cases. For example, the FBI pays $50,000 for tips leading to the arrests of most of its top 10 fugitives.'"

Comments

Potentially duplicating

[dan dan the dna man]

this

But the question I have to ask - are they really worth persuing to this degree? I'm not trolling (seriously) but I'd rather see my tax dollars paying for takedowns in more serious crime..

Re:Potentially duplicating

[Trailer Trash]

Spam is a serious crime. A single spammer can cost our country millions of dollars of lost productivity each year. While no one company (outside of AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) bears this entire cost, it adds up to big bucks in the aggregate.

It is quite appropriate that we put a bounty on spammers. Frankly, I still think the proper thing to do is to have a large statutory penalty, say $10,000/spam, that anyone can collect in small-claims court. We had a good law here in Tennessee, but the penalties weren't large enough ($10/spam, capped at $5000/day) and it really didn't specify that the damages weren't compensatory, leaving the judge with some discretion.

The only way to kill a spamming operation is the "death of a thousand cuts". It's obvious that law enforcement doesn't really care about this problem, otherwise Ralsky and Hardigree wouldn't be doing interviews and talking about their wealth. For that matter, I don't see a bounty system as working since we're still relying on law enforcement to catch and prosecute.