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MS Gets $7 Million From Spammer

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the a-nice-chunk-of-change dept.

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.'"

5 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. The wrong example by phpm0nkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:The wrong example by gorbachev · · Score: 5, Interesting

      " As entrepreneurs go, Richter is scummy and opportunistic, but spammers come a lot worse"

      No, they don't.

      Richter has done it all. He's done every dirty trick in the business, including spamming for a fake 9/11 charity and pocketing the money for himself.

      Spamming using open proxies and zombies: check
      Bulletproof hosting in China: check

      About the only thing he has NOT done is hijacking unused netblocks to get anonymous Internet routing.

      He may NOW be all "legit" and shit, but the money running his current spam empire has all come from various illegal activities.

      The only thing different with him and your garden variety chickenboner is that he is somewhat successful in scamming businesses to buy spamming services from him. He gets repeat business, most spammers don't.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
  2. Confused by niskel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Everyone gets spammed and somehow Microsoft gets $7M. How does that work?

  3. Is email a technology that can be saved? by bgfay · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  4. Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"... by rwyoder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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.