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Aussie Spammer Faces Millions in Fines
An anonymous reader writes "An alleged Australian spammer could face millions in fines if he's found guilty of breaking the country's anti-spam laws, reports ZDNet. The Australian Communications Authority alleges that Wayne Mansfield and his company, Clarity 1, sent at least 56 million commercial e-mails in the 12 months after the Spam Act was enacted in April 2004."
He faces millions in fines... the question is whether the fines add up to more than the income he made from spamming. If fines are all he gets, there's still a chance that he's profitable and the spamming is "worth it" to him.
I don't want him to be thrown in jail for 15 years or anything, but getting off with just fines may not be much of a deterrent.
This case will demonstrate to the international community that spam laws work if this case succeeds, otherwise, it will provide a reason to stop legislation on spam and possibly illustrate the futility of enforcing laws on the web. It's sort of a win-win situation.
_____
Thank you.
Every one of these clowns that gets taken down is a step in the right direction. Large fines and lots of press will start an intimidation factor that will slow new people from replacing the ones taken out. Each time it happens in a different country it means fewer places to hide.
Of course just tieing them all to trees upside down and feeding them Ex-Lax for a week would be a more fitting punishment.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
A clear indication that better laws should be able to prevent this abuse.
hilarious
Wouldn't it be worth to also know which businesses hired/paid money to this man's marketing company to carry out such unsoliciated marketing campaign.....I reckon those businesses which paid for such services must also be prosecuted......much like when you are prosecuted when you pay someone for carrying out an act of crime (eg: murder)
The fully correct way of doing this would include, to use a well-worn phrase, following the money. Go to the source. Find the guys who use this dude's services.
Mass unsolicited mail isn't always viagra spams and pre-approved mortgage scams. A colleague who does email security for (insert major UK bank here) recently forwarded a mail their head postmaster dude received from an eager (one would presume) intern at some marketing outfit.
Basically, it was a survey spammed to all postmasters of large outfits, making no attempt at subterfuge or hiding content, saying "what email filters do you use if any? How do they work? How can we get an exception for our mails? We mass-mail for large, reputable clients" with example spam from Nike and other big, well-known companies attached. The reply from postmaster was hilarious sardonic--you could tell that he realized that marketing-boy just didn't have a clue what he'd just sent; postmaster was barely restraining his trigger finger and trying to be at least vaguely civil.
Point being? Someone is paying these fuckwads to spam. Just like the Lycos screensaver attempted to do with basically a DDoS, it is technically doable to find spammers' clients and take them out. Spammers are just the messengers, middle-men, crooked little street dealers--nailing their shrivelled little testicles to the wall, while gratifyiing and a right step, won't solve the problem.
That said, I don't think fines are a good thing in this case. Public beatings, well...
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
No, we do not have the death penalty.
Generally speaking, were not self-righteous enough to believe we hold absolute truth which gives us the right to take the right to take the life of another.
And considering our convict heritage, an understanding and empathy towards the potential falability of the law is not supprising.
I'm glad that I don't live in Austrailia.
I'm glad too.
Going after the spammers won't help - they know how to cover their tracks too well. Its a simple supply and demand issue. As long as there are people who will click on the garbage coming in their inbox every day, and companies willing to pay the spammers to send it, trying to rid the world of spam by imposing fines on the spammers themselves is like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. We need a two pronged approach: 1. Education - More net-savvy people will mean less clicks on spam ads. 2. Corporate Accountability - If the companies who retained the spammers services had to pay the fines (say $1.00 per spam, and maybe some sort of painful audit or SEC investigation), we'd see a dramatic drop in the amount of spam.* *Except for AOL and MSN.
Single? Canadian? We can help. Visit http://www.l
If fines are all he gets, there's still a chance that he's profitable and the spamming is "worth it" to him.
Case in point:
My grandfather is a seafood salesman in Quebec (Canada). He sells to many restaurants. One of major restaurants in the Montreal area was one of his customers. He sold all kinds of different food products to them. One thing he sold was frog's legs.
One day, the restaurant stopped buying frog's legs from him. He asked the owner what had happened. The owner said that they had found someone that could undercut my grandfather's price per pound by $1. My grandfather said surely its impossible. Theres no way you can get frog's legs so cheap.
About a year later the restaurant was temporarily shutdown for investigation. The owner had been selling rat's legs instead of frog's legs.
After the investigation was over and the restaurant reopened, my grandfather went to the owner and said, "I knew you couldn't get frog's legs that cheap." The owner said, "Listen, I was selling one thousand pounds of frog's legs per week. At one dollar a pound I saved $1000 every week for a year. The fine was $1500."
He laughed and said that he would do it again because it was worth it.
True story that happened about 20 years ago, but I'm willing to bet that if the fine on this spammer isn't high enough, he will say it was worth it too.
John Howard used his sons IT company to send thoundands of emails to potential voters in his electorate spaming them but do we see him being charged .
0 06795.html?oneclick=true
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/26/1093518
Unfortunately, the profit margin for spammers is still obscene and the loopholes are enormous. According to a Ciphertrust whitepaper the supply vs. demand ratio, cost of entry and lack of real overhead makes spam a low hanging fruit. Addressing these three issues is paramount. Legislation is an after the fact hand in the cookie jar approach.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
Have you people heard of the notion of "innocent until proven guilty"? It says an alleged Australian spammer. Let's make sure he really is Australian before we start jumping to conclusions.
"Anyone who sends bulk spam emails should be rounded up and shot. Well, maybe publicly humiliated first and then shot.
Slowly."
It's rather difficult to shoot someone slowly - pretty much it works like this....
Not shot.... Not shot..... Not shot..... *BANG*
Shot.
I suppose you could push the bullet in with some kind of stick if you were particularly vicious and/or desiring to save on gunpowder.....
thats almost 2 emails per second for a year straight
"nothing strengthens authority so much as silence" -LdV