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.
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.
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.
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.
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
You assume that
A) The corporation manages to live through the lawsuit to begin with, and
B) They're not sued by a front corporation that declares bankruptcy, folds up, and disappears.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
spammers are shot on sight.
It's just that noone can find them for some reason.
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.
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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.
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):
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.