Spammers Finally Under the Legal Gun?

MarkvW writes with this welcome bit of Schadenfreude: "People are finally starting to use the anti-spam laws in the malevolent manner in which they were intended — unlimited consumer lawsuits from unlimited plaintiffs!" The story's protagonist is my hero for the season.

Comments

You'd think TFA could at least get English right

[fishexe]

San Francisco-based Balsam has been wielding a one-man crusade against e-mail marketers he alleges run afoul of federal and state anti-spamming laws...

Wielding a crusade? Really?

"Unlimited plaintiffs"??

[fishexe]

How is this "unlimited consumer lawsuits from unlimited plaintiffs!"? What I see in this article is a substantial but limited number of lawsuits from one plaintiff.

Re:You'd think TFA could at least get English righ

[Smallpond]

To be fair, a one-man crusade is fairly easy to lift.

Dan is... odd

[MBCook]

I know a company that has had the fun of dealing with Dan. While I hate spammers as much as the next guy, Dan's little crusade seems less than legal to me. Having a valid opt-out isn't good enough. Here is what you agree to by sending him email (not that you would know it at the time):

All persons, businesses, and other entities that send any unsolicited commercial email to any email address containing “danbalsam.com” voluntarily enter a contract with Dan Balsam and agree to be bound by the terms of the contract and “No Spam Policy” as described herein.

1. Unless Dan Balsam or someone else with an email address including “danbalsam.com” has specifically opted in to receive commercial email from you, you understand and agree that neither Dan Balsam nor anyone else with an email address including “danbalsam.com” has ever requested any commercial communication from you, and that any commercial email you send that includes “danbalsam.com” in the To, Cc, or Bcc fields that fits these criteria is against the express wishes of the recipient(s).
2. As consideration for reading your unsolicited commercial email, you agree that any email you send which advertises or promotes any product, service, or Internet destination shall be subject to a $25,000.00 fee for reading and responding appropriately. The fee may be paid in advance at PayPal, or Dan Balsam will remit an invoice.
3. You accept responsibility for any affiliates or marketing agents who promote any product, service, or Internet destination on your behalf.
4. Concealing your identity increases the fee by $10,000.00 to compensate for the effort to track down the sender.
5. You may not sell, barter, or give away to any other party any email addresses containing the domain name “danbalsam.com.” Violation of this clause subjects you to liquidated damages of $10,000.00 or ten (10) times the amount of money you made selling the address(es), whichever is greater.
6. You agree that California Business & Professions Code 17529.5 is not pre-empted by the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, 15 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.
7. In the event that any suit or action is instituted to enforce any provision in this contract, Dan Balsam shall be entitled to all costs and expenses of maintaining such suit or action, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.
8. This contract shall inure to the benefit of and be binding upon the parties hereto and their respective heirs, successors, assigns, administrators, executors and other legal representatives.
9. Any action in respect of or concerning this contract shall be litigated solely in California and both parties consent to jurisdiction in California. This contract shall be governed by, construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of California.
10. Sending email to or copying to or blind copying to any email address containing the domain name “danbalsam.com,” or similar actions by your affiliates/agents, constitutes voluntary acceptance of these terms.

Copyright © 2002-present, Daniel Balsam

Re:Dan is... odd

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a valid opt-out isn't good enough.

No, it isn't.

I'm not Dan, but I've dealt with people who think like you before.

Let me put it simply: I didn't opt in to your spam. You're already stealing my time and resources if you managed to get it through my spam filters. So I'm sure as fuck not going to trust you to opt me back out of it.

Re:Dan is... odd

[Firehed]

For future reference, posting as AC is quite pointless when it's so easy to perform a whois lookup, Brett.

But props for *actually* buying the domain. Usually when I involve money in a Slashdot comment, it's from posting an affiliate link or something.

Re:spam is just an example of e-Marketing

[Opportunist]

Because it's using my resources to "speak" without asking me first.

The first amendment does not require me to hold your protest rally in my garden. I may do it, provided I support your case or at least don't care, but the 1st does not require me to surrender my property or my rights to something (in this case, the storage space on a server that I have the right to use) to let someone execute his 1st amendment right.

Re:Spam still makes it through the filters?

[jfengel]

Well, this guy is making a living out of it. He's seeking spammers, at least the kinds of spammers he can figure out where to send a subpoena.

Unfortunately, those seem to be the comparatively benign spammers. Oh, they're still spammers and I wouldn't shed a single tear if any of them had their faces eaten off by wild dogs. But at least from the article, this isn't the Nigerian princes, or Russians trying to sell you v1@gra. It's the companies who really should be complying with the CAN-SPAM laws so that they "can spam" you. (And the kind that's REALLY easy to filter.)

They're not filling your in-box with millions of spams. That's the other guys, and as far as I can tell this guy isn't doing squat about them. Work for somebody else, but it means that this guy is less interesting than he might appear from a cursory summary.

passing on the cost

[Anonymous Coward]

The spammers just pass this cost on by raising the price of penis enlargement pills. As always, it's the little guy who pays in the end.

We use PGP whitelists, and don't get spam.

[VortexCortex]

By requiring all incoming mail to be either on the user controlled white-list (ie: any user can opt to allow an address such as *@slashdot.com or joe@sixpack.net), or to be linked via our PGP chain of trust we have eliminated all spam.

Signing up for a web service that validates e-mail address? Simple: add that site to the white-list first.

In my company signing our e-mails via our PGP key is essential to prove who wrote what when.

Seriously folks, the solution to SPAM is not yet another awesome filtering algorithm, or futile and expensive legal proceedings; It's verifying the sender is who they say they are. Stop complaining about how unsecured & non-authenticated the unsecured & non-authenticated e-mail protocol is and instead, help us all work towards the solution by adopting/advocating secure & authenticated e-mail.

Why does SPAM exist? Because people are too lazy to force the authentication issue. If everyone digitally signed their e-mail we could say, "filter all mail connected by more than 6 degrees of separation into the junk folder," and the fight against SPAM would be over. IMHO, we shouldn't be fighting against SPAMers, we should be fighting for adoption of authentication.

$50 per day??? No!

[www.sorehands.com]

Under California Law, Business & Professions Code Section 17529.5 it is $1,000 per e-mail.

But, there are two things you forget: (1) that there is a cost; and (2) if many people do it, it will bankrupt the people who are advertised by the spam. This threat may convince companies that will hire spammers to think carefully before hiring a spammer.

Not just domestic!

[www.sorehands.com]

I have sued foreign spammers.

In 2003, I sued Global Web Promotions for their penis pill enlargement spam. Though Global Web was in Australia, they solicited business from California and caused harm in California.

See Snowney V. Harrah's Entertainment, Inc., 35 Cal. 4th 1054 (2005) (Solicitation of California Residents) , Calder v. Jones, 465 US 783(1984) (Harm directed to California)

I am currently suing a porn organization, the third time, operated by David Szpak and Emmanuel Gurtler for illegal spamming. (See http://barbieslapp.com/spam/axscharge/axscharge.htm) The main companies are all located off-shore, the US companies were mere shells for the offshore companies. These guys hired Yambo (See http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/listing.lasso?file=880) to send spam for them. They created two new companies, just after I sued them the first time, but they claimed it was not to avoid my lawsuit but to avoid the Visa anti-fraud/chargeback detection mechanisms.

Re:You'd think TFA could at least get English righ

[LingNoi]

You don't happen to work as a spammer do you? I don't see how any reasonable person could think this is morally wrong.

I also don't see anything morally wrong with your example you gave either however it isn't exactly equal to what this guy is doing since he has evidence.

Everyone's tired of the internet being treated like a toilet (except you it seems) by companies. If this dude can clean it up a little then that's good by me regardless of what reasons he has to do it.