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Massachusetts Atty. General Forces Spammer to Pay
Cildar writes "The Attorney General of Massachusetts has forced a Florida spammer to pay a $25,000 fine and enter into a cease and desist order. The original suit contained both state consumer protection theories as well as allegations of CAN-SPAM violations. Here is the Attorney General's press release.
Its good to see that the can spam act is actually taking some action, along with the governments. However I bet if the spammer had to pay just 50 cents for every email they sent, they would be fined in the millions.
My primary email address is 16 characters, made from a couple German words strung together. I've got another one, which is my name @gmail.com, set up to redirect to my primary. If I ever start getting spam from that, I can discontinue use, and set up a new address, keeping the forwarding address secret. I have received zero pieces of spam in either to date. What's your excuse for getting spam?
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
Why did he settle instead of going all the way?
Spammers spam because they think they have the freedom to spam, and the only way to stop this is to take away their freedom, ie some jail time.
Failing that, I thought the fine is a bit small, but sooner or later, people will find the "threshold" fine to impose, which basically make the whole spamming business unprofitable.
Now if only they would seize all his computers and find all of the tools he used to send all this spam.
Most likely, he's used the benefit of spyware to send this bs out. It would be really nice to make those results public, so it would shed a better light as to why we should protect against that crap...
--- "To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist!" -- Jesse Jackson
Not providing an opt-out link is not allowed under CAN-SPAM, and if the link doesn't work, then they can be fined. Great. BUT when other spammers have the opt-out link generate an attack on your machine, is the opting-out link something the lawmakers want to champion as real enforcement of the law--ostensibly making us better off?
Intil consumers have a private right of action as one exists in the telemarketing laws (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 47 USC 227) then the CAN-SPAM or anything else will be toothless. The TCPA gives consumers the right to sue in small claims court for violations of the law and subsequent federal regulations. I have another hearing soon sgainst a local mortgage company that made a single, prerecorded call to my residential line. I have demanded a total of $5000 in damages (statutory damages of $500 per violation [with 6 violations] and trebled due to defendants willful or knowingly violation of the law) since that is my local court limit as well as will be demanding an injunction. This is just one person's action. If just a few more people knew their rights and enforced them, the mortgage could be taken out of business for even a single illegal telemarketing campaign or until they declare bankruptcy. Serves them right I feel, IMHO.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
No, not O'reilly. Tom Reilly, the MA Attorney General.
He's been on a virtual warpath against corporations. He didn't back off like all the other states did in the case against Microsoft. He took on the Catholic Church, and sent them running for cover. He's been a non-stop machine against corporate greed and corruption, and it's about damn time. We need a lot more state AG's like him.
I have a feeling he has aspirations for being federal attorney general. Long as he keeps up his current record of corporate ball-busting, I'm all for it. Yet another reason to vote for Kerry, I see it- Bush is quite happy with Ashcroft, and I doubt Ashcroft would last very long under Kerry. Somehow, I don't see Ridge lasting long either.
Pretty sad when you loose an election to a dead person and get slotted right into a high ranking, federal executive position you're not even remotely qualified for.
Please help metamoderate.
is all the Mass action is.
$25,000, from what has been reported as spammer income in other stories linked from here on slashdot is less than a day's profit. The Mass. AG did the same thing the NY AG did, grab headlines to promote himself for future office, and tuck away an action against a popular cause.
If the intention was to stop the spamming, the fine would have been higher, the AG would have forced the spammer to give up the mortgage brokers who are paying the spammer affiliate commissions for the leads, and the AG would have revoked the licenses of the mortgage brokers.
But the mortgage brokers have friends in high places, and well placed campaign donations.
Follow the money. Pull the licenses of the mortgage brokers. Pull the licenses of any other individual or company who pays a spammer affiliate money, commissions, or any other types of payments based on results of spamming. Delist public companies that pay spammers and fax.com in cash and stock to blast fax and spambomb advertisements to promote and raise awareness of their penny and dollar stocks.
$25,000? A mosquito bite. The spammers are laughing at the Mass AG right now.
He could just create a business, incorporate it, and then have it do the spamming, then he's not liable as an individual. I may not like it, but it is possible.
Video Production Support
The credit to Microsoft for assistance is interesting. They're clearly taking more than one approach to attempt make good on their "stamp out spam" promise.
This particular tack is one that MS is uniquely positioned for, given their rather strong contacts in government (hmm) and impressive financial and personell strengths.
Hell, I wish 'em luck. It'd be nice if they'd stop with the "gain control of eMail" angle, but this approach is useful. Even if it's not overly effective or efficient, it'll be one more thing that makes spamming less worthwhile, and that can only be good.
What you're essentially saying is don't punish anyone for anything.
It doesn't have anything to do with giddy moral superiority, it has to do with causing the undesirable behaviour to cease because it causes suffering by those who didn't want it and did nothing to deserve it. A rapist or a spammer gives up their right to claim membership among the set of people who did nothing to deserve being raped or spammed or stoned to death when they rape or spam.
I used to have trouble with the apparent logical paradox caused by punishing someone with the same undesirable thing that they did in the first place too, but I eventually figured it out. You still have to be exquisitely careful (and we're not careful enough) that you don't hose innocents, but if someone makes conscious decisions to rape and murder others, they have forfeited their own life, and that is fair and just.
Besides, there are over six billion people on the planet so it's high time that we started killing people for things like being monumentally annoying, as is the case with spammers.
So let me see if I understand this ... the court settlement prohibits the spammer from doing stuff that he's prohibited from doing anyway. How useful.