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.'"

Comments

Spam Translation - Read the little font

[bigwavejas]

"Nevertheless, Richter said that he and his company had changed their e-mailing practices and pledged not to send spam to anyone who has not asked to be sent commercial e-mail."

Richter knows nobody in their right mind would agree to receiving the loads of $hit he shovels. What he effectively saying is, "I'm going to hide in teeny-tiny font, at the bottom of some website, when you click "Accept" for your order (whatever that may be) you're also agreeing to receive my spam."

In his case he's a product of what he solicits - Garbage.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Frymaster]

Richter knows nobody in their right mind would agree to receiving the loads of $hit he shovels

and yet, miraculously, there are people out there who buy that stuff... if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam.

if we're really going to stop junk email, these are the people we should be working on educating. think what damage could be done to the spammers' pocket book if every new copy of outlook showed a little message every time a suspected spam was opened that said "warning: unsolicited commercial email may be fraudulant".

if ms is serious about shutting down spam, they should spend less on lawyers and more on educating their end users.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[schon]

there are people out there who buy that stuff...

Maybe, although that is far from proven - all we have is the word of the spammers themselves, and you must remember rule #1 (spammers lie.)

if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam.

Bullshit. If this were true, then there would never have been spam to begin with, because the *very first* spammers got exactly zero orders. Nobody bought anything, and yet spammers still spammed - why? because they could.

It doesn't matter if nobody buys anything - as long as sociopaths believe someone *might* buy their crap, they will continue to do it, and new ones will pop up as the old ones run out of money.

What they see is lots of spam from other companies, and (just like others who lack critical thinking skills) believe that "someone must be buying", and start spamming.

if we're really going to stop junk email, these are the people we should be working on educating.

How are we going to do that when *YOU* buy into the self-perpetuating "someone must be buying" myth? Since *YOU* believe it, spammers will believe it, and they will keep spamming.

I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

and send some people to jail AND take their money
simply taking their money isn't good enough as they can afford it so it becomes a cost of doing business

untill they slam them in jail nothing will change

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

They're using a publicly provided service with no effective barriers or restrictions on it's use.

No, the "public" isn't providing my mail server. The public didn't pay for the server, the software, the bandwidth, or the storage. I have effective (though not 100% effective) barriers to spam and I have posted the restrictions against sending spam to my domain. I also have less than 100% effective defense against other forms of trespass, but it doesn't mean that I should just put up with trespassers.

There are no posted signs that say "keep off the grass" or realistic ways to prevent anyone from doing so.

My domain is anti-spam.org. If that's not enough, my home page includes the following notice:

anti-spam.org specifically prohibits the transmission of spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail) to our network and considers spam e-mail a form of computer trespass. Spam constitutes a theft of our limited bandwidth and storage and interferes with our use of our Internet connection.

How much more obvious can I make it?

they're not getting $7 million

[rich42]

the article says "agreed to pay $7 million to Microsoft" not "gets $7 million" there's a big difference.

Microsoft's odds of actually seeing the money are about as likely as a spammer "unsubscribing" you.

Re:Why Microsoft?

[Otter]

Why Microsoft?

Because they sued him and you didn't.

Because you're a different victim

[jfengel]

In this case the victim is Microsoft because they run Hotmail, which received (and had to wade through) beaucoup spam from this asshole. If you had a Hotmail account, I suppose you could be entitled to some of this, but since you paid zilch for it in the first place you get zilch out of this.

If you run your own mail server, you may be entitled to sue the guy yourself. Good luck on that.

The CAN-SPAM law specfically restricts these sorts of lawsuits to ISPs, but I'm not certain of the details. Either way it's probably best to let a large corporation conduct this sort of lawsuit, because it'll cost you a fortune to sue the guy for the relatively small sums you'll get. It's unfortunately to have your right to sue removed, but in this case it's probably not worth your effort anyway.