Slashdot Mirror
MS Gets $7 Million From Spammer
pin_gween writes "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft has settled its spam suit against Scott Richter for $7 million. From the article: 'Microsoft and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had sued Richter in late 2003, asserting that he had sent, or helped other spammers send, billions of e-mail messages to consumers touting everything from herbal products to loan consolidation schemes.'"
Microsoft as an ISP is taking the money.
U-CAN-SPAM permits AGs and ISPs to sue spammers for money. One of the things which sucks is most ISPs (in the way we think of ISPs) aren't going after them and AGs as well as the FTC serve in bulk mode: get billionz-n-billionz of examples, then ponder going after them.
It's the fault of the DMA, who essentially wrote U-CAN-SPAM. Take a gander at some of these from Jerry Cerasale, of the DMA, on June 16, 2004:
Washington Post...We agree that the consumer should have choice, that they can say 'no' to receiving further e-mail. (IOW, they demand the right for everyone to get one bite at the apple).
ZDNet.com, October 21, 2002..."We're finding that we need to give the consumers the choice to try and allow them to control their inbox, to try and say no, I don't want this, while leaving the medium open for commerce," Cerasale said.
But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."
Interpretation: any law which prevents businesses from making money via email is wrong. And anything which permits inbox owners to avoid getting business-oriented unless they give permission is wrong.
IOW, email serves one purpose and one purpose only: for businesses to make money. Anything impeding that is wrong and anything else is personal consumption and secondary.
But in a contradiction, here's what the DMA has to say about spyware legislation on May 25, 2005:
"The DMA strongly believes that consumers should be in control of their computers..."
Now, DMA, which is it? Do we have control or don't we?
This last quote is the newest. Does it mean they've changed their collective minds? I doubt it I don't think they realized they contradicted themselves. If confronted, they'd backpedal and perform some serious tap dancing in the process.
If you want to collect the loot yourself, set up a server, sell services to your neighbors, and you're in business as an ISP. When the spam rolls in, pay a visit to your local court and file the paperwork.
BTW, I'll say here what I said on SPAM-L: even though Richter was taken off of the ROKSO list, Richter has tasted the taste of money regardless of how it was obtained and he's sitting on millions of email addresses. He's not shutting down how he does business, despite anything he says. And he still stands to make a lot of money harvesting email addresses and selling them to others. There is nothing in U-CAN-SPAM which prohibits the harvesting and sale of email addresses, only the use of harvesting email addresses as the targets of unsolicited email.