Slashdot Mirror
Suing the Spammers
ReadbackMonkey writes "AOL sued a Queen's based group of spammers, and
was awarded $600k. " As always spam is a nasty problem. This morning I was hit with my wseekly request to purchase toner (I don't own a printer) as well as an exciting pornographic opportunity. Its annoying, but I still don't feel happy about seeing lawsuits like this. I'm happy to see spammers pay, but how far could this go?
It seems to me that AOL oughta be passing that money on to the actual people who received the spam. I'm sure their argument was that it was wasting precious space on their servers, but they are still not the people who really suffer from having to wade through the spam every day.
If this happens, I hope somebody puts a webcam on their cell. I'd pay to see that!
Now watch, some spammer will send out spam advertising the WebCam on the spammers.
;^]
www.eFax.com are spammers
IMHO spamming is something that should be prevented as rigorously as possible, and if lawsuits are the only effective means, so be it. However, this procedure is slow and unavailable to small ISPs who don't have the $$$ to back up such a lawsuit.
While the problem of Spam seems to have lessened in recent years (it did for me, anyway), I still think Spammers should be hit with everything we can must.
Real-life advertisments are bad enough, but Spam really takes the buiscuit. It's often illegal or immoral, and almost always the spammers hide by abusing a honest netuser's badly maintained mailserver to handle the load of traffic, generating in fact large damages. Also, some spammers go even further - Twice, a spammer used my email address in the From field. This, as you may understand, caused in me a "zero tolerance to spammers" attitude.
If Spam was properly labelled and included valid from: information, I could tolerate it (and feed them their own spam). Just like in the Real World.
Anyway, the bottom line: I think with lawsuits like this, justice is served.
Now, for the Amazon Patent trials... *SIGH*...
-----------
--------------------
Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
I've resorted to a two-tier e-mail address scheme to avoid spam.
I have a public e-mail address, and a private address. My public address is the one listed at the top of this message. My private address isn't listed anywhere, and never will be. I've configured pdrap@startrekmail.com to forward everything to my other e-mail address where I can read it. All my friends have the other e-mail address because it never changes.
Eventually, spammers will all have the pdrap@startrekmail address, and it will be useless because of all the spam. All I need to do is abandon the address, and sign up for another one. My main e-mail address never changes, so my friends never need to update their address books.
So far, it works.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Its annoying, but I still don't feel happy about seeing lawsuits like this. I'm happy to see spammers pay, but how far could this go? On the one hand, you abhor spam and desire that spammers spend eternity in the innermost circle of hell. On the other hand, you're not sure you want them sued. What gives? Currently, suits such as this are our ONLY redress against spammers, since in most states, spam is neither a criminal nor a civil offense. The only leverage anyone has against spammers is to sue them as hard and as long as possible. In general, only corporations have the legal resources to do this. While I would prefer to see other solutions in the long term, in the short term, I see no way around these law suits except to let spam continue unabated. These lawsuits also establish a trend in the court systems (I don't want to say precedent, since they're not necessarily precedents). As long as the court system is finding that spam is bad, spammers can't tell Congress and state legislatures "We've been doing this for years, there's never been any indication that it's bad or wrong, and now you're taking our business away from us." Trust me, they will use this argument if they can.
Once again, /. posts an article without reading it themselves:
> The unsolicited messages, which included fraudulent headers misrepresenting that the messages came from aol.com...
They weren't busted because of the spam, but because the spam appeared to come from AOL.
> AOL was entitled to recover for unjust enrichment, since Christian Brothers unlawfully used the AOL mark...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
such as this guy which i received at 'yougotthisfromslashdot@overtone.org' the other day. ---
We are writing in response to your software advertisement on the Internet, and
will be honored to feature your software in our listings with a description and
link to your home page., etc etc etc.
not to mention the impact of people throwing away [whatever-the-quantity-is] of CDROM every week.
we should have a day each year where everyone writes "return to sender" on all their AOL CDs and puts them back in the mail.
A QUEENS-BASED group that markets apricot seeds as a cancer cure over the Internet has been hit with more than $600,000 in damages for clogging the computer systems of America Online Inc. with the transmission of millions of the unsolicited e-mail messages known as "spam."
I don't doubt that this spammer contributed to AOL's network problems, but it seems like AOL is using them as a scapegoat to use as an excuse for their poor network structure. $600,000 worth? Nope. A big chunk of that money was recovered because the spammers were illegally using AOL's trademark, but AOL is trying to push it as "They clogged up our network."
Now, on to the rightfully concerned parties. Sure, AOL has the definite right to be upset about unnecessary network traffic used as spam, but what about the people who have mailboxes full of it? See, AOL gets a nice tidy $600k reward for disposing of a spammer, but what about everyone who got these spam messages in their inbox? What do they get? "Thank you for forwarding your spam message to abuse@aol.com. While we can't offer a personal response, we will look into the matter and hopefully collect a nice chunk of change while you get spam from 8 million other AOL addresses. Have a nice day."
AOL should use the cash to update their network for their members, but they won't. That money is going into their "So-easy-to-use-no-wonder-it's-number-one" ad campaign. And with every new member who signs on, their network slows down another notch.
"By God, it must be more spammers."
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Spammers abuse other people's private property, raise the costs of everyone's Internet access, have basically no interest in anyone's desire for privacy, and generally piss off 99% of the people who receive their crap. And it is crap. From obscenely detailed come-ons to porn sites (sent with disregard for the recipients age and sex) to illegal and fraudulant "business opportunities" they are so far from being legitimate and valid businesses it's beyond belief. In six years as an Internet user I have never received a spam that was of any interest or relevance to me.
Thing is; they only have to get a tiny response rate to be successful. If you mail a million people, and 0.01% respond, that's still one hundred responses. The cost (to the sender) of spamming those million people is very small, and the prospect of one hundred responses can certainly justify it. Who cares if the other 99.99% want you hung? There's always another ISP to buy a throw-away account from for next week's spam.
But someone pays. The ISPs do, in terms of bandwidth, storage space, and full-time staff to deal with the abuse (read: "mainly spam") problems. And you pay, in terms of your own bandwidth and your own time.
"But surely," the spammers squeal, "anyone can send any emails they want. The Internet is open to anyone!". In fact, this isn't true. The Internet is a collection of interconnected private networks. Those servers and routers are private property. Anything you do across them, you do because of private, voluntary agreements.
And the connection between your computer and that network? That's a private, voluntary agreement too. And one of the conditions of that agreement, like as not, is that you may not send unsolicited commercial bulk email. And if you ignore that rule, and incur costs and annoyance for other people? Well then, you're liable to be sued. And so it should be.
This is the way forward; not unworkable anti-spam legislation, but the simple and straightforward enforcement of voluntary private contracts. Way to go AOL. Let's see more of this.
-- - .. .. but I still don't feel happy about seeing lawsuits like this. I'm happy to see spammers pay, but how far could this go?
ReadbackMonkey writes "AOL sued a Queen's based group of spammers, and was awarded $600k. "
--- - End Quote
Lets see. They spam the AOL network relentlessly trying to sell their Peach seeds (or whatever). They used AOL's name in their spam, presumably to make it appear that it was a partnership with AOL.
. Misappropriation of a Corporation name (AOL)
. Spam/UCE
. Attempts to hide identity (fake headers)
. Loss of bandwith, storage, network performance
(AOL)
. Possible loss of revenue (AOL could have lost
potential money due to that group using the
AOL name in its marketing)
. Refusal to stop, even after repeated requests
by AOL, etc.
. Disrespecting the law (throwing the court papers
they were served with right back in their face,
literally (read the article)
-- -
All this, and you hate to see someone like this get nailed with a decent lawsuit? Personally, I think someone who behaves in that manner, totally disrespects the law, wastes everyones banwidth, and is only concerned with themselves (they continued to send mass spam to AOL customers even after the request not to) should be sued into the ground and then shot. They deserve it.
(Shameless plug): ProcessTree - Put your idletime to use.
If the people who lost time, etc want money, then they can file a class action lawsuit against the spammers. It will probably be easier for them because this decision holds that the spammers did do it, but you would still have to convince the judge that time/money was lost. IANALBIMTALS
-no broken link
I know a few states, at least, have anti-UCE emails. However, it shouldn't be a nation or world wide thing. Suing is the correct path of action,
A good lawsuit, appealed a couple of times, is as effective in creating law as legislation. The big difference is that if you don't like the law, you can't fire the people who made it.
This can't really go far at all. It deals with unsolicited bulk mails being forced upon the subscribers to an online service. While the article didn't actually define (maybe I skimmed) the court definition of 'bulk', I would imagine that it is fairly considerable.
This case related purely to ISPs, and will not have repercussions in the non-wired world. It is based around the forced transmittal of e-mail inherent to the structure of an ISP. When one addresses mail to X@aol.com, AOL has to deliver it. They cannot employ a million monkeys to read every mail that passes their doors. As well, AOL does not charge for e-mail sent, only for the privilege of a member receiving it. The post office, of course, charges by sending and not receiving. This is why the Postmaster General has never sued Publisher's Clearing House.
Where will this stop? It'll stop with spammers, I presume. I've never utilised a mass e-mail in order to accomplish anything remotely worthwhile, nor have I felt the urge.
There are some legal issues at stake here. As mentioned, spam advantages itself of the nature of an ISP. I would have imagined that, legally, this would disqualify any successful lawsuits against Spam. Instead, the onus should perhaps be placed on an individual ISP to block all mails sent to >25% of its user list originating from the same domain. Of course, this still burns space on the servers for a given ISP, but perhaps these are infrastructure issues that should have been earlier addressed. What veteran of UseNET could not have sagely pointed to Timmy in Colorado and his never-ending difficulties with a variety of diseases when charged with an infrastructure consultancy role for a startup ISP? This is an important lawsuit, because it is establishing point of responsibility for bulk e-mails.
If concerned with frivolous lawsuits, this does not qualify. The United States legal system supports a suit based around unmeasurable 'psychological agony', not to mention that if you have trouble getting an erection after any sort of trauma you're entitled to a boatload of benjamins. As it were. This lawsuit seems necessary to me. It's ruling on who dwells firmly in the wrong (spammers) effectively ends the quietish war waged between ISP and marketing reps, should this case fall as a firm precedent in the judicial system.
I do have some reservations, however. My day will become increasingly dull as I am no longer called upon to wage war against Islamic treatment of women, save various children trapped in various wills, visit webpages in order to resuscitate Charlie Chaplin, indicate my grocery shopping preferences or partake of some high-quality ultra XXX full penetration action. I will no longer qualify to punch the monkey, follow links to great savings or track down a long lost love. My social conscience, smart shopping and porn consumption will all doubtless suffer as a result of this lawsuit.
Bastards.
-l
I hint a tone of, hmmm... concern? in this comment. I haven't seen anyone address that yet.
How far could this go? Maybe we should be concerned that sending our humor e-mails to a large list of recipients could end us up in court paying AOL heaps of money for tying up their servers, even when the recipients didn't mind receiving it. It doesn't just apply to this case -- one could argue anyone who sends large volumes of e-mail for any reason could be subject to penalties. I guess that's a concern, in a very convoluted way (although the spammers that were clipped here were guilty of much worse crimes...)
One way I've deal with this (my geographically wide-spread family sends each other a dozen or so humor e-mails per day) is by signing up for one of those free listserver/majordomo services. I'm not sure that they (e.g. OneList would defend me, but I do know that by subscribing to my list, I can show that the recipients were not just passive but took active steps to become involved in my list, therefore my weekly humor digest is not "spam". At least, that's my thinking.
I'm not happy with the spector of being abused by big business because I send a lot of e-mail to their subscribers, but on the other hand spam has gotten out of control. If direct-mail marketting companies operated like they do, they would have been locked up years ago. Sure, the "spam" snail-mail can come to you without an address; likewise you can throw it away unopened or even mail it back to them in their own post-paid envelopes. BUT, if direct-mail companies sent out snail-mail with someone else's return address on the envelope, you can bet they'd be clipped quickly. Why spammers think this helps their business case, I have no idea.
In my opinion, another thing that must be stopped are so-called "web bugs", effectively something we've already all talked about here (cookies in GIFs) but attached to HTML e-mails that automatically load on Outlook Express. I guess people who use OE get what they deserve, but this practice should be illegal. Unfortunately, I can't find the Web Bug FAQ link here, but those "1 X 1 GIFs" must go!
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
I'm glad that the spammers got a beating from AOL, but what worries me is the thought of thousands of AOL users actually buying into the 'Apricots are a cure for Cancer' garbage.
I hope law enforcement goes after them for fradulent claims.
I'm not saying AOL users are stupid (as I usually do) but there is a certain weak element in any large group.
.sig: Now legally binding!
The person spamming,
Nice idea, but isn't responding directly to the spammer just confirming to them that your address works and thus making it more likely that you'll receive something in the future?
--
"I do not speak for my employers, though they are controlled from my Teddy's huge pulsating brain."
Well, let's think.
Are you planning to try to hurt AOL's reputation in front of millions of people by forging their trademark onto a fraudulent medical claim?
If not, I wouldn't worry too much.
Yes, this was a good suit. No, it's not a problem. No, it's not likely to become a problem. There's nothing that they were sued for that people shouldn't, potentially, be sued for.
Someone fussed about distributing jokes to friends. Well, as a friend who gets a lot of jokes, let me say, *STOP*. It's actually pretty irritating to those of us who skim web sites and Usenet already, because we *have* already seen it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
While the above "they should get the $ 'cuz" posts are fairly valid, they miss one point: AOL is a service company, not a product company. (Yes they have product of software, but that didn't really suffer.) What suffered were the users shelling out ~$20/mo and wondering why they were getting pathetic throughput. Now, if AOL keeps the money, fine, whatever, they're a corp and can claim it for stockholders. But I would contend that everybody who pays a monthly bill to AOL is a form of stockholder as well [esp. when local ISPs only charge $10/mo.] -- and (given their chat-room atmosphere) AOL would do well to hold a sort of community rally. Maybe it's just $1 off everybody's bill for next month, (which is more than $600K, another reason AOL might as well keep the cash), but the community needs to know that something specific and good happened for them. /that's/ why AOL shouldn't view this as a financial victory, but rather as a chance for a PR coup.
You can do a lot to fight spam. Junkbusters has a site devoted to getting these intrusions out of our lives. I've used their anti-junk snailmail system, and it really does work well. They've also got a nice page on stopping computer UBE crud, too.
Personally, I never hide my mail address. It's dishonest, and, technically, against the rules. My real address, tchrist@perl.com, is sitting right here in this message, on the header for this comment, and is also posted in a hundred thousand different places--if not more. But you know what? I don't see much spam. I auto-bounce at least fifty pieces of spam per day. And most days, not more than a couple make it through -- but only once.
Some of them get bounced using sendmail's anti-spam features. I'm a big fan of the Realtime Blackhole List, which sendmail can be configured to access.
Some spammage get bounced because the sender is on my own blacklist of forbidden addresses, which lately includes things like /\b\d+\.net/. Others are bounced because they look like spam, or because they're mime-encrypted. This is all taken care of by a custom receiving program, plus some other scripts to dynamically update the blacklist.
I don't automatically bounce mail that violates reasonable netiquette, but I do have a periodic posting about the idiotic Jeopardy mail.
And yes, now and then a few innocent men are sent to the gallows. This is the price we pay on the war against spam. If it's important, they'll figure out another way to mail me.
I say more power too the mega-corps with the $$$ to bust these spammer's asses. I'm tired of all this "I have free speech rights blah blah blah" ... "spamming is legal and moral blah blah blah" ... once you invade MY inbox, all bets are off pal.
The fact that AOL nailed 'em on fraudulent use of the AOL.com domain in headers just goes to show how spammers will be forced out of business. This is common practice by almost all the spammers out there since they know their emails are hated by 99% of the users they hit and would rather NOT have it traced back to them. With more and more spammers getting busted for this practice, they'll have nothing to hide behind and YOU KNOW DAMN WELL that if they can't be anonymous frauds, 99% of existing spammers won't spam anymore.
I just wish we could do something about all the telemarketers...in my opinion these people are far more annoying than spammers. At least spam doesn't start arguing with you when you hit "delete".
I don't know where you're from, but where I live (Canada) there already are laws in place to limit what telemarketer's can do. (I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that the same applies to the US, as well.)
In short, there are hours they are allowed to phone, and they are _NOT_ allowed to argue with you - as soon as you say "I'm not interested", they are legally required to say "goodbye" and hang up. If they start to argue with you, it's time to get the name of their company (via *59, if necessary) and file a complaint against them.
You have rights, you just weren't aware of them.
that's about all I know to do.
Last time w/ a note that I spend about 15 min/business day sorting thru the crap and asking if the total industry wide loss of productivity is worth what little revenues and taxes that spam generates.
Boojum
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need that, see an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
We don't really need new laws--trespass will do it (see my coment in the ebay section). However, "joinder" is an issue that needs a change either legislatively or through court rules. It's not worth suing over a single spam. On the other hand, if an ISP could go in with spam for ll of its subscribers at once, it could be efficient.
Then again, an ISP might require an assignment of rights today to allow it to do this, crediting back part of the proceeds to subscribers' bills . . .
hawk, esq.
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice.
By sending the spam into the U.S., the spammer has subjected itself to U.S. law, and potential judgments.
Once a judgment is issued, *any* asset--such as the payments from the next round of spam, web banner royalties, credit card proceeds, and the like an be attached (seized) in payment of the judgment.
Fortunately, you put this on a computer screen, rather than on one of the microeconomics finals being filled out in front of me as I type--you would have failed my class :)
That rates have dropped says *nothing* about whether prices are higher due to spam. Yes, they are lower than they used to be. This in no way suggests that prices would not be lower without spam, and very basic economics reveals that spam raises prices. The question isn't "are the prices higher?" but "how much higher are they?" (and maybe it's not enough to worry about.
In any market with any competition between vendors, higher costs mean higher prices.
hawk, writing as an economics professor this time
I am a lawyer, but this isn't legal advice. Etc.
*all* that is required for a contract is offer and acceptance; not any exchange. These can take many forms, including aceptance by performance. It is *entirely* possible to have a contract that you accept by sending packets.
hawk, esq.
Yes, it would be wrong to spam the spammers. Consider everyone between your internet pipe and their internet pipes -- increasing network traffic to punish someone for wasting your time by increasing your traffic is slightly misguided.
Personally, I prefer Spamcop. There's something satisfying about cancelling accounts.
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
My fax machine got spammed yesterday for the first time. I remembered that, unlike email spam, fax spam is explicitly illegal, so I went looking around to try and see what to do about this. I found this document on the FCC site.
The bottom line is, you're screwed.
While it is illegal for someone to spam your fax machine, there is realistically not a damned thing you can do about it. You can personally take them to small-claims court for up to $500, but that would take forever, and so few people will ever actually do that that spammers will feel free to do their thing with impunity.
They do mention an ``opt out'' list you can have yourself added to, but of it they say:
Which sounds to me like the DMA sells this list to spammers. So we're to believe that there are spammers out there who would pay money for a list of people who do not want to receive their services. Huh? Forgive me if I have a hard time seeing the motivation there.
But I Might Talk A Lotta Shit? ;-)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
What do I do with it? http://spamcop.net/. I own airwindows.com, so the address I sign to my reports is postmaster@airwindows.com, which I think is a nice touch (yes, I do get that mail). I've killed sixteen spammer's accounts, and that's only the instances where I was told directly by the ISP that the account was killed.
I really _like_ knowing that I killed sixteen spammers' accounts through personal action (with much help from spamcop). If you spam me you are taking a definite risk. I'm not a safe dude to spam. >:)
I'd separate chain letters from UCE. To me there's a really substantial difference between commercial spam and commercial spammers, and people being idiots. I'm constantly annoyed and driven to distraction (maybe not _constantly_) by people, particularly friends, being idiots and forwarding lists of jokes or chain letters or chain 'inspiring emails' etc. ad nauseam. Yet for commercial Email I go after the spammers and try to get their accounts pulled (have killed 16 as of today), something which I would never do to a poor newbie fool forwarding stupid things because they don't know any better.
BAntiSpammerFH motto: "Why hide from spam when you can go out and have the spammers killed?" :) (please don't be a fscking idiot about it, tho- forwarded lists of jokes are not commercial spam, they are some friend of yours being a luser. Spam goes to huge monster lists of addresses, it's not merely email you don't like.)