Spammer Sued Under EU Law

IngramJames writes "A British businessman has successfully sued a company who sent him a spam email. The case was settled out of court, so is not binding, but it's promising that the spammers had to cough up £300 for a single email! It's being reported (in a much more readable way) on The Register and the BBC." From the BBC article: "Three years ago the EU passed an anti-spam law, the directive on privacy and telecommunications, which gave individuals the right to fight the growing tide of unwanted e-mail by allowing them to claim damages."

Comments

Can't wait!

[drewzhrodague]

Can't wait to be able to sue spammers from here in Pittsburgh. There isn't much we can do, other than track spam, and ask them to stop. Lots of spam that I see comes from Russia, or China, and there isn't much that can be done about it. THe biggest majority of those I get are zipfile attachments with some bogus message -- viruses or whatnot. I'd like a procmail script that turns each spam message into a unique lawsuit -- any takers?

But...

[voice_of_all_reason]

How much will it cost you in:

Court fees?
Lost wages from taking days off of work to go to court?
Lawyer's fees? (Well, you can save on that by getting a season of Law and Order on DVD, I guess...)

Great in principle, but I fear the day is theirs :(

Re:Nice job...

[LiquidCoooled]

Suppose you own a company, Tlacuache Inc.

If I decided to commission a detailed spam campaign on your behalf (but without your knowledge - lets call it a 'gift' from the members of my botnet).

How could you prove you DIDN'T instigate the run, and how could you prove its not your fault?

Do you enjoy giving your money away?
This fine hopefully won't set off a trend.

Not a lot, in the UK

[Flying pig]

This is the UK Small Claims Court. I think it currently costs about 80UKP to make a claim, scaling to 10% of the amount claimed. You do not need a lawyer, you can fill in the forms yourself and ask the clerk for advice. The court is fairly informal, run by a kind of junior judge for the most part, who is allowed to employ considerable common sense ("equity"). So it might, possibly, take a day of your time which may be worth it to deal with a very annoying spammer. Oh, and if they decide to ignore your case...summary judgement against them.

What's more, it works. I was involved in a case in which a company sued a friend claiming payment for work they had not, in fact, done. Although we screwed up mildly on the paperwork the judge in the case decided that did not matter and gave judgement in our favor. The other side walked out feeling very upset, but realised the cost of going to a higher court to try again would be much greater than the amount claimed. So they gave up.

Re: decided in or out of court?

[Conor Turton]

The article is self-contradictory as to whether the case was settled in or out of court.

I'll assume you're not British and not familiar with Small Claims Courts. The company was found guilty. There was to be a later hearing to determine the amount of compensation awarded. The company offered a figure before the later hearing and the claimant accepted it.

Also at Small Claims Court in the UK, if one of the parties doesn't turn up to the hearing, judgement is automatically awarded against them whether they're the claimant or the defendent. Which is bloody brilliant because it means that if a company in the South East of England screws me, I can take them to a local Small Claims Court, which is over 300 miles away from them, and if they don't turn up, I've won. If they don;t pay, I can then go back for a warrant, have bailiffs seize their property (at a cost of £100+ per time) and auction it, returning time and time again until not only is the judgement satisfied but the bailiffs fees too.

perfect, now the spammers will get their judgment

[everdictdotorg]

Its funny because internet brings new possibilities togather with a new threats like spam, content theft etc. Its fine if the law can fight against spam effectively, but ussually it can not(http://www.e-verdict.com/justice-system). The spammer can sit and perform its dirty job from some undeveloped country where no any civilized law will reach him. The same works with content theft. If the server is in some country which is free of normal laws, the thiefs will flourish... How can we fight this new technology issues efficiently and effectively? One think we can do for sure is to list all these people and organizations which are untrustable. Then the other people will know who they are dealing with.