Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer

Brielle Bruns writes "Yesterday, Judge James B. Zagel dismissed claims against Comcast by e360. In the decision, the judge says: 'Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit." e360 is the spammer that got a default judgement against Spamhaus, as we have discussed on numerous occasions.

Comments

CvE

[Anonymous Coward]

Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit.

Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever loses, we win.

Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic?

[ZuG]

You know, it just occured to me that this is really false.

The spammer shares the costs with the recipient's ISP, and ultimately the recipient (through increased ISP costs). The cost of any one individual spam is very low, but taken together they quickly become noticable.

The junk snail mailer pays for all of the mailing costs, but each piece of junk mail he sends must be recycled or thrown away, creating a small effect on the cost of garbage for each individual user. The cost of any individual junk mail is very low, but taken together, they do have an appreciable effect on the cost of trash collection.

Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck

[CogDissident]

Ever hear of "blue security"? They made a program which, when you got spam email, went to the website and filled out their application with tons of "remove me" messages and junk, making their data files unuseable.

The spammers fought back so hard, they knocked the nation of Israel off the internet (where their offices/server was), for a few days.

The lesson? Spamming is big business.

Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic?

[hedwards]

The spammer shares the costs with the recipient's ISP, and ultimately the recipient (through increased ISP costs). The cost of any one individual spam is very low, but taken together they quickly become noticable. That's not really correct. A spammer might have to pay as much as you or I do in terms of costs, but they're getting that amount times millions and millions for free. Since the biggest names these days generally are using bot nets and co-opting servers the cost to the spammer is in most cases essentially zero.

It's sort of like paying $5 for a car and making somebody else pay the rest of the sticker cost for a luxury car. Yes technically they're both paying, but even street people around here can get their hands on $5 without too much trouble.

Trying to fight spam with legislation doesn't have a chance without global cooperation, and the Russians in particular just don't care, as do a few other nations. It's difficult to deal with places like the US where most of the spam originating from here is doing so from compromised computers.

Technical deterrents are difficult to get right, and while they do allow for some help, it's impossible to really fix it. It makes a difference, but with the current net architecture it's a challenge to stop spam and have anonymity as well.

Ultimately what things come down to is making it less rewarding. What we really need is the ability to fine companies that are paying spammers to advertise for them. Admittedly it would be nice to see spammers drawn and quartered, but realistically, it's far easier to find Target, Walmart, Bestbuy and the other companies I've seen advertised than it is to find a cyber criminal that may or may not be located somewhere in southeast Asia. It's just so much easier to follow the money than it is to try and follow the spam.

Of course that's going to be fought tooth and nail, and I'm sure there are other problems with it. But it's a far easier solution to the problem than the others are. Of course, that isn't a license to ignore the other parts.

Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic?

[jellomizer]

Well for me in my City Garbage is a fixed cost per year. So if I use it or not I pay the same amount... However junk mail helps keep the United States Postage Service running. And for relitivly low stamp prices for the level of service the USPS offers us. Daily Home Deliver and Pickup a close by location to get federal forms. Witout Junk Mail Stamps will be well over a dollar a stamp. Mail delivery will be much slower and a lot of other bad things...

SPAM on the otherhand is advertising without the good. They dont support services that we want they are a burden on ISPs even the company who chooses to Spam reputation (albiet I havent seen a legit product being sold in years) will be shot. It really is a take-take indrustry that gives nothing back. At least tobaco comanies keep generations of farmers in business. SPAM operations run cheap make money without any benefit they are not a positive impact on the economy, they do no good.