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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.'"
Initial reaction is "YEAH! Stick it to'em!" Then when I think about it, this man isn't really phased by such a lawsuit. Sure it pretty much shuts down his spamming career, but that won't stop him from finding another even more assinine method of making money which he needs now more than ever to pay off the lawsuit.
You can sue people all you want but it won't change them. I suggest breaking his fucking knees. Pain speaks.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Well well...
Hell sounds like it just worked out for the better for them. Make a crap spam filter and you get to take people to court.
Spammers aren't "stealing" anything any more than, say, lounging around in a park all day is stealing. They're using a publicly provided service with no effective barriers or restrictions on it's use. There are no posted signs that say "keep off the grass" or realistic ways to prevent anyone from doing so. Even worse, the majority of the internet community is against mechanisms that WOULD put barriers up.
Frankly, if you want to live on the frontier, you're gonna have to put up with lawlessness and barbarians.
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You seriously don't understand the term "public" do you? You are connected to a public network, and you are willingly accepting connections from public SMTP servers. This is no different than a shop keeper running a "public" store in which people are indisicriminatly allowed to shop.
Posting something to a web site on a domain is like saying "Well, I posted my "No Trespassing signs in my bedroom, what do you mean you didn't see it"? It's a different mechanism, in a different place.
But all that is really beside the point. You willingly let anyone connect to your server. In fact, that's its very purpose. If you invite the world to your doorstep, but don't want some people there, you best have a way to stop them.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here