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$1 Billion Awarded in Lawsuit Against Spammers

Posted by michael on from the collecting-it-may-be-the-hard-part dept.

phoric writes "In what is believed the be the largest federal judgement in history against spammers, an ISP from eastern Iowa was awarded a $1 billion dollar judgement against three mass-mailing companies, which were said to be sending up to 10 million e-mail messages per day to the small internet provider."

9 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Why them, not me? by elh_inny · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Will they share, after all I am a vicitm as well?

    1. Re:Why them, not me? by eneville · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The money _SHOULD_ go towards projects like Spamcop et al.

      As someone else just mentioned its the ISP who sues and wins, part of the money will go towards damages involved in catching the nasty people.

      The winning ISPs will probably now get a torrent of mail heading their way, which probably futher anoys their customers, but I bet they have tighter logging in place!

      --
      Why UNIX?
    2. Re:Why them, not me? by Fishstick · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >You ought to have to pass a test to be a legislator, judge,

      yes. it's called an election

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  2. Guarenteed? by Renraku · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll believe it when I see it. Spammers have a way of packing up and vanishing from the face of the earth over night.

    --
    Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
  3. Re:Slippery Slope by jcr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You seem to be under the misapprehension that spamming is a first-amendment issue. It's not, and has never been a free-speech issue, it has always been a property rights issue. Spammers make their money by stealing service from millions of people.

    Ralsky and the rest of his ilk are free to say whatever they want to say, but that does NOT include a right to use my computer/router/etc. to convey their message.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  4. Let's don't blame the victim here by gadlaw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This argument reminds me of arguments like 'she asked for it' or 'well, you should have locked your doors'. Blaming the victim for not doing everything humanly possible to prevent the crime against them is one step away from anarchy. And make no mistake, this was a crime as defined by the law. The spammers thought that they had a small company that wouldn't and couldn't fight back. The spammers thought they would get away with it as they have always done. In this case the victim fought back. Shame on the spammers and hooray for the victim.

    --
    Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
  5. more needs to be done by harryoyster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The real problem is that more people need to make a bigger effort against spam. The US fines and stuff imposed on spammers doesnt really make that much of a difference to SPAM world wide. The majority of my spam is now non-us based for the first time in years. What can we do.. stop routing to those ISPs that have problems. revoke entire ranges of IPs. it will work.. make everyone on that ISP suffer will make the ISP change thier policy very very fast.

    --
    Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
  6. Florida bankruptcy laws? by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Some of these spammers were in Florida, and I know that Florida has laws that let you keep large personal assets like houses even in bankruptcy. (Strange how many scam artists move to Florida.) Does it matter that the judgement was from a federal court?

    The question is probably moot since the spammers vanished before the case started. (They didn't didn't even send lawyers to the court.)

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  7. $1 billion vs $2.6 million by jmcmunn · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Ok, so the spammers have to pay $1 billion for what they did. On the other hand Diebold only had to pay $2.6 million for writing bad voting software that potentially ruined the future of the country by allowing for voting results to be hacked?

    There's something wrong with the way our legal system works, and more importantly this shows that people don't value their right to vote nearly enough. Spam seems so terrible to people because it annoys them on a daily basis, and yet no one is up in arms about their freedom to vote being insecure.

    Come on people get the priorities straight...afterall there's decent antispam software out there, and even a small ISP can block people from sending spam through their servers if they are properly patched and up to date on security realeses. Damn, I only wish some spammers would take advantage of any holes I have now, then I could sue and be rich forever.