Slashdot Mirror
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."
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
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.
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.