Slashdot Mirror
Spammers Sue Spam Victim For $4 Million
fronck writes "Self-declared anti-spammer Mark Mumma, a web hosting and email service provider, has apparently been sued for just under $4 million by cruise.com and their parent company Omega World Travel after they were ordered to stop sending him emails and comply with Oklahoma's CAN-SPAM act. Mumma intends to see the trial through court and meanwhile the spam continues unabated. More insight available at Ars Technica."
As the spammers have clearly identified themselves and their victim should have logs clearly showing their abuse he should counter sue them.
They have kindly set the level for the quantum of damages.
The judge will hopefully smack this one down. If the company doesn't like the CAN-SPAM act, they should appeal whatever case they lost against it, not go and sue the guy who reported them to the cops.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I find it hard to believe that there isn't another side to this tale.
That said, if the company *IS* prosecuting on those grounds, an out of court settlement involving some guys named Vinny is probably at least as effective.
W
The courts are very familiar with SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation).
Many states are adopting Anti-SLAPP legislation that should make this easy to get dismissed and as TFA suggests impose sanctions against the plaintiff.
I'm a big tall mofo.
They sue people to get them to give up. A lot of people don't have the time, money and/or will to fight someone in court, so they say "Sorry!" and go away.
Or at least charge him less, geez.
If you read the article, or even the original posting, he's an anti-spammer. He has a website which talks about spam and how to avoid it. The spam industry doesn't like it. So they are suing him.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
They actually write real summaries that explain things. It's quite amazing compared to what we get here at Slashdot. Just go read their story and compare.
I LOVE living in a place that treats every lawsuit as if the defendant is guilty. For example, if i sue you over the rights to your property, even if I don't have ANY proof, I can prevent you from selling your home for as long as I can keep appealing the courts (hopefully) sane decision. Just think about what would happen if you were about to move and I did that. What if you were a corporation moving out of a factory building. The upkeep, the security risk, the TCO of the place could sink you if I kept you in court long enough. I hate that this country allows that sort of BS.
md5sum
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
In the US, you can sue for anything at all, and this is what happenes when a company with money picks on someone who doesn't. Hmm.. who does this remind us of? ??AA anyone? The case would be thrown out of court in a heartbeat, but first it has to get there, and that means that Mark Mumma will first have to hire a lawyer (which he already has, according to TFA).
This is just another symptom of the twisted legal system that has been allowed to evolve in the US. When will legislators realize that it's time for serious legal reforms to end these types of frivolous, baseless lawsuits that are intended only to intimidate and harass?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
A common tactic nowadays. Take someone to court even on a frivolous charge, knowing they can't afford to play the legal game. This works until someone takes the bluff and says, "OK, buddy, I'll see you in court and I intend to make you lose, and lose badly." For that you need a deep-heeled "victim," precisely the type that tends not to get sued in these sort of situations.
But every now and then a bully miscalculates, as we saw with SCO versus IBM. So what we need is for someone with bucks to take on these spamming sleazes, point out they are misusing the law with these abusive lawsuits, and knock them off their high horse.
In capitalist U.S.A.,
spammers sue you!
Interesting stuff at the very end of the emediawire article.
Copied:
SUEaSpammer.com and SUEDbySPAMMERS.com are trademarks of MummaGraphics, Inc. Cruise.com is a registered trademark of Omega World Travel, Inc.
MummaGraphics, Inc., founded in 1993, is a provider of Internet web hosting and web site design services and has begun directing its energies to curbing unwanted junk email, a/k/a. spam. MummaGraphics began suing spammers in August 2004 and intends to file several more lawsuits in the future. MummaGraphics, Inc. is currently undefeated in court.
must be an "any publicity is good publicity" because all it's telling me is to boycott cruise.com, and there are a lot of fellow slashdotters who would feel the same.
FTOFA:
"Omega World Travel has argued that Mumma violated their trademark and copyright by using images of the company's founders and the company's logo on his website, and they also allege that Mumma defamed individuals associated with Cruise.com by posting personal insults on his site."
I don't want to appear to support spammers, but if there is merit to the claim, Mumma might have been asking for this.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Mumma wrote it. Why did he make a press release? By the way, eMediaWire is owned by PR Web, and is a site where anyone can issue a press release. For instance this is the latest from my hosting network. Just for instance. My instinct is to blow off anything on PR Web as crap.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
According to: http://www.suedbyspammers.com/about/index.html
1.Defamation (for calling them spammers)
2.Trademark Infringement
Easy /. links to the spammers sites are:
here and
here
Please click away
The headline from ARS Technica "Spammer sues anti-spammer for $4 million". The headline from Slashdot "Spammers Sue Spam Victim For $4 million".
Some countries control frivolous lawsuits by making the loser pay the court fees on both sides. In the US that is considered a violation of due process, so it genrally isnt done, though a judge can order it. Thus, frivoulous lawsuits can be filed fairly readily.
Show them what spam is about -- call.
For example, head over to SueASpammer, and you will see right off the bat he calls for people to
Reading a little further, he implies that people should falsify their identity when OPTING IN TO AN EMAIL LIST, and then later using that as leverage (e.g. say "Who the hell is Joe Blow? My name is John Public). I'd have to look into any applicable law, but in my dictionary, that constitutes fraud.
Number three, if you read Omega's suit, they allege that Mumma did not comply with the provided opt-out procedure, but instead called them and almost immediately started threatening them. Mumma allegedly would not provide his information so that they might comply with his "request" to be removed. Instead, he was belligerent, insulting, and threatening. This may not be illegal, but it is certainly in poor taste and is a mark against him. Lawyers and judges don't want to deal with fanatics, for the most part - they want to deal with reasonable people that have a legitimate claim.
Number four, since Mumma's request for removal was NOT VALID via his own stupid actions, and since he allegedly SIGNED UP for this "spam," via indirect admission at SueASpammer.com procedures, this is not a valid claim under CAN-SPAM. Furthermore, this also invalidates Mumma's claim under Oklahoma law, see 776.5.3 at SpamLaws OK.
I would not at all be surprised to see Omega et al. come out of this not only unscathed, but smelling like a rose.
main(){char I,l,O[]={'-',1-1,0,(1<<5)-1,0+'-',-10-1,-10,11-0,
According to the plaintiffs, the defendant (mumma) called them on the phone (specifically their legal department) and asked to opt out. When they asked for his email address, he refused to give it to them telling them to go to his site to find out what it is. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like an "Opt-out" scenario to me. If he wasn't even willing to give his email address to them to have it removed, that sounds to me like he was attempting to defraud the spammers. Much like the old auto insurance scam where someone pulls in front of your car and then slams on the breaks to get you to rear-end them. He has to prove that they have another method for getting email addresses for their "e-deals" other than the opt-in section of their website. If he can't do that, then their case against him is pretty solid. He opted in, he refused to opt-out, therefore they can still send him email.
I realize that this may be a very unpopular opinion on slashdot, but If half the things they allege in their suit are true, this guy is about as unscrupulous as most spammers. Companies aren't the only ones that can bring frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to get the other side to settle rather than go to trial. Of course, we probably don't have all the facts from either side, so the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
IANAL... But I play one on
See disclaimer in my other post about this not being legal advice.
.
To dismiss a case on the initial filing, the judge must find that even if everything in the complaint were proved, the plaintiff would not be entitled to relief. That's not the case when alleging copyright infringement.
The next chance would be a summary judgment motion. At that point, evidence is weakly tested with the presumption that the fact finder (judge or jury) will take it in its most favorable light, and the evidence for the other party in the least favorable. If no reasonable person could find for the plaintiff under those circumstaances, then summary judgement is granted.
That's not a hard standard of the plaintiff to meet . .
hawk, esq.
Create a black webpage, with black background, and all text, links, and viewed links as black.
In clear, concise, plain English, post said e-mail address with explicit instructions that no commercial interest may send you unsolicited e-mails, nor will the owner of the address ever opt-in to any mailing list.
Make sure you link to this black page from someplace else, so the web bots can find it.
When spam arrives, give them ONE CHANCE to follow the law and their own printed disclosure to remove you from their lists. Save all spam and spam removal requests as evidence.
1. Post e-mail
2. Unsubscribe
3. Sue
4. PROFIT!!!!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
It's possible, but I don't know how likely it is. The trial lawyers, being a very powerful lobby, have consistently opposed the idea. See http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/000199.html
Go to http://www.overlawyered.com/archives/000199.html to read the rest of it.
An example from Overlawyered.com's "Loser Pays" archives (bold added):
rent disputes in a couple of alrge cities do indeed work that way. In those cities you *can* stop paying rent, make up some phony excuse or allegation, and force a six month process.
:)
.
In other places it's not so easy
I handled an eviction in El Cajon, CA, in which the deadbeats had watched too many programs about San Francisco evictions.
There is a five day response period. They filed a "motion to quash service" on the grounds that "the process server is a suspected relative". That was enough to put it on the court calendar over a month away . . . (no judge looks at the answer; it just automatically schedules a hearing)
I went in and got an "order shortening time" for a hearing the next day to quash their motion. The judge agreed that it was silly. Normally they would have had five days from then to file an answer or be out. I argued that as a sanction for the frivolous filing, time should be shortened to answer. She gave them until 5:00 the next day.
They thought that they'd been ordered out, and were gone by then . .
hawk
They are provably not anything like a poison though. They have become a huge part of the US diet over the past 100 years. Our expected lifetime has grown over that time, and is greater than that of many places that don't use trans fats. If trans fats were all that bad, we'd have noticed many decades ago.
So don't be exaggerating to the point of dishonesty. Have a cookie.
Let's put this in terms we can understand:
"The shoddy state of software today will last for as long as we have programmers. Because, after all, it's not in their interest for this state of affairs to end. If software becomes reliable, they're out of a job."
If someone were to come on Slashdot and say this, a few people would loudly agree with them and quickly get modded -1 Troll. A lot more people would accuse them of being arrogant, closedminded and just generally stupid. Of course many--most!--programmers want reliable software. The benefits to us of reliable software are myriad and manifold. No more calls at 2am on a Sunday because the server crashed. No more scouring BUGTRAQ looking for the next exploit we have to defend against. No more wondering whether the software flying the airplane we're riding on was written by lowest-bidders working in Bangalore.
The benefits to programmers from reliable software are so clear, so obvious, that we would laugh at anyone who seriously proposed that we deliberately kept software unreliable.
And yet, the instant you say lawyers are deliberately keeping the legal system difficult, people nod their heads understandingly and compliment you on your wisdom.
The benefits to a clean, efficient system of law are so huge and so obvious that, without exception, every single lawyer I know--and I know quite a lot of them--is an advocate for streamlining the legal system.
The problem is that society is huge. The machinery of government is truly gargantuan. These enormous edifices of government were put in place for a reason: because as obnoxious as they are, they're a lot better than what came before. (Take the Voting Rights Act as an example. It's a colossal piece of legislation and is a constant pain in the ass during election years. But it's a lot better than Jim Crow.)
So the problem Congress faces is, how do they pare government down and streamline it without returning us to the Bad Old Days we're trying so hard to avoid?
This is a tough, tough problem--all the moreso since the law is, almost by definition, a safety-critical system.
Imagine that you're given 100 million lines of source code. You're told, "Here. A lot of people are unhappy with it and they want major change right now. Oh, and while you're trying to strip out a few million lines and reduce bugcount, our coders are going to continue to write code to adjust to the ever-changing needs of our clients. Finally, remember that any bug you introduce has the potential to affect billions of people worldwide. Have a nice day!"
Please, try looking at the problem as a pragmatist and a realist, not with the simple and sophomoric eyes of a cheap cynic. The world is more complex, and a far richer place, than can ever be sufficiently explained with cheap cynicism.
Next: why should he comply with their opt-out procedure. Had you read the article carefully, you would see that he talking about spam that he certainly did not opt in to, merely responded to.
I hope and expect he will win.
Justin.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
I worked for Omega World Travel in their "web" department and worked specifically on the cruise.com property. This was a number of years ago just before the DotCom bust. I had the chance to work directly with the owner Gloria Bohan and her husband Daniel Bohan. It's a woman owned biz on paper, he really runs the show. At the time I worked there, they had not yet grapsed the concepts of the internet well yet, but had very hot properties (cruise.com) that were pulling in very lucrative money from what I gathered. They were expending large sums in purcashing domains and had plans to grow the division. They did recognize the potential of the internet market, but had a very poor understanding of technical details at the time. I was originally hired to increase their standings in search engines and design banners for advertising. I used the usual techniqes of the day including keyword stuffing to get better positioning. Of course this included using some names of competitors. To show you how clueless the owner was at the time, he saw the competitors name in the keywords during a weekly meeting and proceeded to whine (yes, he whined like a child, stamped his feet, and had tantrums) about his competitor showing in the keywords. I attempted to explain the reasons and was told I didn't know what I was doing (the main reason I was hired), to remove the keywords, and go back to my office. Suffice to say that was my last day on the job. Now I read this article and I am not suprised one bit by the actions of cruise.com and OWT. I am sure that once Dan grasped the concept of email solicitaion the flood gates were opened. To see that he has been stupid enough to direct his legal department to follow this course of action is about par for him. He still dosen't fully understand the whole picture. I sure hope the people I worked with there have been smart enough to move on.