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FTC Levies Fine Against Big-league Spammers
An anonymous reader writes "The FTC said it has closed down a spam operation in California that sent millions of unwanted messages to online users across the country and fined the companies involved about $2.4 million. The settlement doesn't shut down the businesses and, based on the financial records of the defendants, the judgment will be suspended upon payment of $475,000."
Way to go, and make sure spammers do not abuse the freedom!!
hilarious
The FTC and California charged that the defendants e-mail:
-- contained false or forged header information;
-- included deceptive subject headings;
-- failed to identify e-mail as advertisements or solicitations;
-- failed to notify consumers they had a right to opt out of receiving more e-mail;
-- failed to provide an opt-out mechanism;
-- failed to include a valid physical postal address.
If this can't get them shut down what can? Sending out spam email that totally destroys your computer into tiny little pieces?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
From TFA headline:
Then in the third paragraph:
So they shut down the "spam operation" but didn't shut down "the business".
Fat lot of good that will do.
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
So, basically what the FTC is saying to these companies is pay us for sending out your spam. I'm sure the fines will actually go up at that rate, but it doesn't solve the problem per se.
I wonder if the FTC will turn around and use the fine money to pay the people who were affected by the spam? Nah!
Simply go after the PRODUCTS and their manufacturers.
Make THEM police the net or be shut down with huge fines.
I would fine the manufacturers 150 % of the company's worth.
I would also add infinite jail time. Yeah, I am evil.
Ever since I heard about the FTC's spam address I forwarded all my spam to it, (what made through the school's filters at least,) even after hearing detracting opinions about it. Good to know my contribution to the effort may not have been entirely in vain.
Well, in Denmark we still have some protection of the consumers. A wine retail company recently agreed to pay a fine of 40,000 DKR (roughly $6200 or 5300) for sending about 950 unsolicited e-mails.
I think this is the way it should be. As long as it pays to send SPAM, it will be sent - it's a plain and simple business calculation.
Spam is hugely profitable, because your overhead is nil. That means the spammers involved have lots of cash. And their company probably has no assets, and will fold into bankruptcy because of these fines. So what does this mean? The guys dig into their pockets filled with cash, and start another company and do it all over again. Its sort of a nice noble gesture, from when Congress clearly had nothing better to do, but its about as effective as making speeding illegal.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The ADA levies fine against Big League Chew.
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
I want them to be sentenced to write (by hand) an apology to every person they've wronged...
and to memorize and pronounce the words made of random letters they include to try to evade spam filters
and to change their names to the one in the "from" field. That is, legally change their names to names such as... let me check my mailbox for a second... "Recipe 4Living", "Approval Dept", "Content Paradise", "Your Mngr. mosettamay", "Sr. Loan Specialist" and "Always Savings".
Now that's justice.
I get so much useless spam, it's unbelievable. If some of it was actually something useful, I may not mind, but 99% of it is just a ploy to get around the filters.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I am not subprised in the slightest at this.
The FTC is now taking the same approach to spammers as they do telemarketers, in a theoretical sense.
They rather fine these companies just enough to get some money out of them but not shut down their business or cause them to go under. Just another revenue stream for the FTC.
It goes to show they could really care less about these companies sending out spam, they would rather just fine them and make money off of them.
Like I said in the subject, no suprise here. The FTC really has no compassion for what the consumer has to go through, if it's more money for them. they're all for it. If they were to actually shut down the business then they couldn't fine them anymore.
(Yaaaay.)
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Now Barry Bonds will stop emailing me questioning why I don't have him on my fantasy baseball team.
I told you NO Barry! Stop emailing me!
Punishing a massive spam operation by fining them $475,000 is like punishing a murderous street gang by making them surrender a leather jacket. If anything, this is going to encourage more spam, since spammers will see how utterly light and inconsequential the punishments truly are.
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
They should be forced to buy whatever product it was they were being paid to hawk. Penny stocks, V1@gr@, etc.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Msft does this all time, they blantantly break the law, and when they get fined: they yawn and throw somebody some pocket change.
Toxic waste dumpers used to this also. It was cheaper to just pay the fine for dumping toxic waste, than to pay for the expensive process of correct disposal.
My guess in a $475 fine every five years, or so, is worth it. I expect the spammers to be right back at it.
if you let the spammers spam then the terriers have won.
These "entities" that get busted are only fined some arbitrary number, and since they rake in a lot more from their profitable spamming business, then there's no incentive to stop. Right? Why don't they do an investigation and find out how much profit was earned from their spamming ventures, and make that their fine? Better yet, they could just find out how much assets they have, and take all. Wouldn't that stop it?
They could make it completely illegal with penalties up to and including taking every last penny you have. So what? Won't they just move out of the country and/or use clever Internet spoofing to hide themselves? Of course it's hard to get people to send you money when they don't know where/who you are... but just because I own some real estate company, and just because 10 million spams went out yesterday advertising that company's product, doesn't mean that I was the one that sent the spam. Without officially knowing the source, as long as I can keep hiding that, I'm in the clear. If they just shutdown the company that the spam advertised, it would become a great way to get your competition shut down!
So here's an idea... why don't we start educating the public about how to recognize spam and NOT TO BUY WHAT THEY'RE SELLING!!!! The day this stops is the day it becomes not profitable. Ultimately, it's Joe Dufus in Bumsville, USA who actually says "Wow, my penis must be really small and/or impotent. I guess my wife got me on some pfvizagra mailing list... I better buy some from this company to make her happy!" or, "Wow, I can get a $300k loan at a flat rate of 5%!! I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a hell of a deal! I better call them..."
The people who keep spam alive are the people who buy into it. That should be the target of our anti-spam efforts; trying to stop people from sending spam is like trying to stop the Internet altogether (since that's about what it would take, if you're fighting it from that end). We've got to get people to quit buying this shit!
WOuldn't that cut SPAM down by a notch or two?
Gun control, is hitting the target.
Check the wording of the Second Ammendment. SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
That looks awful like a COMMANDMENT to me. Not an option at some later time.
My spam has actually seemed to increase over the past two weeks. Thank god for SpamAssassin.
I understand that a lot of people aren't particularly computer-savvy, but if someone came up to you on the street and tried to sell you a dozen spy cameras you wouldn't think twice before saying no.
But then I got to this, near the end of the article:
It's easy to see what happened here. The spammers pleaded with the court, "But we don't have two million dollars!" The court was wary and said, "Fine, we'll just charge you the full worth of your company" (which wipes them out, effectively "shutting them down") but it appears the judge added a provision that if the spammers are lying to weasel out of the fine, they will be held accountable.I have a feeling the spammers will flee the country when it becomes clear they were lying. But at least they will have been forced to give up their nice American lives and their nice American bandwidth. That just might make other spammers question whether the price is worth the profit.
The Internet is full. Go away.
Spam will never go away, it is what it is.
Now, if theese guys don't get the full $2.4-million fine, there's a serious problem here.
"The FTC and California charged that the defendants e-mail:
-- contained false or forged header information;
-- included deceptive subject headings;"
I don't expect any financial records handed over by them to be any better.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The FTC should hook up with the IRS to go after spammers.
Basically, if you're caught spamming the Feds come in and make you account for all of your income over the last year. Any money derived from spamming is forfeited, plus penalties. I'd also like to see the penalties weighted so that if the spammer gives up the identity of who paid him or her to spam, the penalty is reduced if that person is successfully prosecuted as well. This way the number of spammers and the companies which contract them get slapped.
Any legitimate business should be able to account for all its income. If a spammer can't prove his income is clean, it is no different than a drug trafficker having piles of cash around which just magically appeared. Anything which can't be documented as coming from a non-spam source should be considered profits of a criminal enterprise, and should get seized.
Don't forget: they have to buy the stamps too. At 39 cents per stamp, 100 million letters would cost them ... a LOT of money!
If you read through other FTC settlements, this is entirely typical. In return for the "target" company not fighting the FTC action, they give up all their money and promise to go forth and sin no more. It usually allows them to engage in their business, whatever that is, but they must not violate the rules again. This settelment was not unique to spammers. It is the same deal that is usually offered to "guaranteed credit card" rip-offs, rule-violating telemarketers, etc.
Typical language: "Defendants are enjoined from engaging in business practices violating the XYZ act in the future."
Of course, there are those that accept the settlement, and then go right back and do the same damn thing again. When that happens, usually the FTC goes directly to court and obtains an injunction against the whole company, and the offender is completely barred from whatever business they were in. Example: "Defendents are permanently barred from owning, operating, or being employed in any operation that involves the sending of e-mail for marketing purposes."
If they violate this, or try to hide, or the conduct is particularly nasty, they get referred to the justice dept. for prosecution.
Everyone's favorite late-night infomercial moron, Kevin Trudeau (speed reading, memory improvement, etc.) got slapped twice by the FTC, so he wised up and instead deceided to promote a completely bogus book instead. Since it a book containing opinions instead of a worthless physical product, the FTC can't stop him, despite him being as full of B.S. as ever.
SirWired
Maybe it's just me, but I have trouble understanding how this fine works. Do I understand correctly that the company was fined $FINE, yet the fine will be suspended upon payment of $FINE/5 and everybody can go on as they please? If you can get away with paying $100, why fine $500 in the first place? Or is this just another peculiarity of the law system?
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
As part of the settlement negotiation, their attorney said that they are considering filing bankruptcy. My response was, I couldn't be happier than have them bankrupt and living out of cardboard boxes, and if my suit does not do it, then I will help others do it.
3 spammers down, too lots left.
Fight Spammers!
Let's make buying from spammers illegal. When they raid the spam house, they should put out warrants for everyone on their customer list. Yeah, that'll work.
What?
There was an AP investigation a few weeks back about how frequently the state & federal governments publicly announce huge fines that they have no intention of collecting -- http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ID=/20060326/BUSINESS/603260365/1003
Hell, why not announce an 800 Quadrillion dollar fine? That'll show the public we're serious! Of course, you're off the hook if you can cough up $5,000 or so...
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The FTC said it has closed down a spam operation in California that sent millions of unwanted messages
So they shut it down on the same day it opened?
AC's modded -6. I don't see you, I don't mod you, anything you say is lost. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
After reading the article, it seems like this amount is all the money (cash and "real property") the spammers had. Sure, they could start again, but with what capital? This way they can at least go out and start working real jobs, and not use taxpayers' money by getting a free lunch every day in Federal prison.
Yes I would.
Here's a question for you. How much SPAM would be eliminated if people's home computer could not be compromised by trojan SPAM agents that spammers use to send out their e-mails?
It seems that spam is difficult to stop because it comes from SO MANY sources. If home computers could not be compromised, spammers would have to send their mass e-mails from a very limited number of systems. That would make those systems easy to identify and shutdown (disconnect) via their ISPs. It also would make it easy to identify the originators of the SPAM, freeze their assets and incarcerate them.
Hello, Microsoft. Are you listening? You own 80 to 90 percent of the world's desktops and home computers. I don't care if it takes until 2010 for Vista to be released. Fix the f*ing security issues that permit these spammers to infect the average user's home computer.
Forget all the cutsie bells and whistles you want to add, scratch the MS Office updates that no one is going to use anyway, and sink your resources for the next 2-3 years into making one fortress release of Windows. Start over from scratch and redesign Windows from the bottom up with security as the central focus if you have to.
Imagine an Internet with 70 to 80 less traffic than it has today. That is what you would have if we eliminated SPAM. Imagine how fast your BitTorrent or FTP download would run with so much less congestion on the Internet. We really need to put the pressure on the OS vendors (Microsoft especially because of the sheer percent of the desktops they own). SPAM can be killed. Once spammers have no where to hide, and their risks become significantly higher than their returns, spammers will go away.
It seems like Microsoft could nearly single handedly kill SPAM just by fixing Windows. Am I dreaming or am I on the right track?