Telco Spams and Gets Huge Fine

jack_call writes "According to The Register the large German based mobilephone operator 'Debitel' was fined $359000 for (deliberately!) sending a total 48000 spam messages( mail: 36000, sms: 12000) to Danish costumers of rival company 'Telmore'. According to different Danish media outlets, they appealed immediately, mostly because the fine comes out at about a sixth of what 'Debitel' made last fiscal year after taxes."

Comments

Good.

[jpiggot]

Sweet God, but this is wonderful news that they've been fined...

I live in fear of this happening on a large scale in the United States. In a country where we pay (at this point) for incoming calls, I'm just waiting for the deluge of spam messages and telemarketer phone calls to appear on my cellular phone.

I own a small business, and our fax machine has virtually been made useless by the junk faxes we get every month. I promise you, we spend more on incoming faxes (ink, paper) than we do on outgoing faxes, none of which we ever "intentionally" signed up for. And the junk-fax companies have the balls to say "we're only making a living" ??? Please.

Destroy these people before they destroy another technology.

Re:1/6 is 5/6 too few

[16K Ram Pack]

And going to prison for shoplifting a $1 item may incur a very serious fine, a criminal record and possibly prison.

Companies should get a simple message - break the law and there will be serious penalties, not some small slap on the wrist that means that you can almost cost it in as an acceptable and calculable risk.