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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.'"
As entrepreneurs go, Richter is scummy and opportunistic, but spammers come a lot worse. Richter at least made an attempt to operate openly and within a feasible interpretation of the law, instead of setting up shop in China and exploiting zombie networks distribute his spam.
From a legal standpoint, this is a nice victory for Microsoft. I hope they achieve their deterrent effect by making the financial incentives to spam more dubious. I'm afraid, though, that they will only succeed in driving hardcore spammers deeper underground, with Richter serving as an example of the dangers of treating your spam operation like a legitimate business.
domain combinatorics
Everyone gets spammed and somehow Microsoft gets $7M. How does that work?
asserting that he had sent, or helped other spammers send, billions of e-mail messages to consumers
At first I was wondering why Microsoft gets the money, and whether they would keep it. What's the basis for this suit? It's not a class action, is it? Shouldn't the money be going to those consumers that were affected by it?
Granted the article mentions
Smith said that Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses, including $5 million that will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes.
But what does that really mean?
I wonder if email is going the way of usenet. I used to use usenet all the time but gave up when spam destroyed its usefulness for me. Every member of my family has switched to Google Mail because our ISP mail accounts, even with the different services' spam protections and Thunderbird's filtering capabilities suffer from too much spam. It seems as though these lawsuits, which make for a great public relations thing (even I'm proud of MS for doing this), aren't going to make any real diffence.
How does Google filter spam so well or is it just that the service is new?
I still like the idea of publishing spammers home addresses and then sending credit card applications, catalogs and all the rest to their homes. If we could get each of them to receive a couple bushels of junk mail every day at their homes, maybe that would help. I'm against the idea of handing pornography to their children as they play on the playground, but it does seem poetically just.
What can be done to save email or as Google already done it?
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I worked for this guy a couple years ago (and one of his associates more recently, see below) in his Westminster, CO offices. He is probably one of those most untrustworthy people you could ever meet. He'll backstab you when its convenient for him and will be on your side when its also convenient for him. I hope him and his fellow spam partner Bill Waggoner both burn in hell.... the pieces of shit.
Scott
I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up, but I do agree that the penalty should be stiffer. As you said, if the penalty is just a cost of doing business, then the penalty needs to be increased. IMO, the penalty should be about double whatever you made off of spamming. The penalty is then doubled for each subsequent offense.
Settling has nothing to do with jail time. This was a civil suit. You can't go to jail due to any decision in civil court. You go to jail for a crime. Clearly the laws are not in place to jail someone for spamming in New York.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
...did an interview with Richter for a story called "High Volume Email Deployer". You really have to see this to appreciate what a moron Richter is. Not only was he stupid enough to agree to be interviewed by them, he was too stupid to realize they were making a fool of him.
Send people to jail for sending email? C'mon...
No, send them to jail for stealing bandwidth and storage. Send the to jail for harassing people by repeatedly sending the same f***ing ads for Viagra, Cialis, penis enlargement, debt consolidation, etc. Send them to jail for interfering with peoples' businesses. Send them to jail for sending ads for penis enlargement to seven year old girls. And send them to jail for a long time.
I agree that it reeks. Microsoft gets their legal fees paid plus some extra dough for massive free advertising. I wouldn't mind it if the money went into some kind of public trust. But the fact that MS just gets an extra 7Mil means that they are beneficiaries of spam business. That's really more of an encouragement than a deterrent. Now any joe who can make 20 million will get slapped with a lawsuit by MS, MS will get their cut, and the spammer can retire. Great business model. Everybody wins except the people whose mailboxes are choked with Viagra flyers.
Unfortunately, I do know some idiot that does read his spam and buys things from it.
I asked why on earth would you even dare read it. You are contributing to the problem by making it profitable.
His unfounded response was that he gets good deals sometimes. (Which is total BS upon inspection... any research on the product shows it can be had for the same or lesser cost)
Spam buyers are the same people who get sucked into paypal, nigerian investment and every other scam on the market.
Having said that, I've seen the guy taken for everything but nigerian scammers and he rarely asks for my advice until after the fact.
A fool and his money...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Hey, do you guys know what spammers do?
They specialize in moving around and hiding their resources so that they can't be easily tracked. If Richter can do it with e-mail, he can do it with any money he has. Whether he declares bankruptcy or not, I don't expect Microsoft to see $7M. I don't think Richter ever had $7M in the first place. Spammers don't make that kind of money. If they did, there would be a lot more of them than they are, and the stuff they would be promoting would be more substantive than home mortgage affilliate schemes and penis enlargement pills.
Spammers are no different than Rappers or Late-night, get-rich-quick spokespeople. They create the illusion of wealth in order to lend credibility to their efforts. Unfortunately, when you watch those videos of spammers on boats and driving Lambos, they're rented, just like the fancy beach house all those make-fast-money people use as the setting for their infomercial. It's all a big crock.
I'm not saying these people don't make money, but it's nowhere near as much as they'd lead you to believe. Their whole modus operandi is about deception so they're sure as hell going to misrepresent their net worth as well.
This is a huge boon to that loser Richter, to even think that he was willing to "settle" paying someone $7M. He comes off like he has the money. There's no way in hell he does IMO.