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Author
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Topic: $1 Billion Judgment Against Spammers
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-18-2004 06:34 PM
Just about everyone hates spam. The only people who don't hate spam are the little bastards who work for spam companies. May they get cursed with some ass-cancer. Here's a news story that was posted today about an ISP's case against three spammers, and the $1 billion judgment that resulted.
quote:
Spammers ordered to pay $1 billion
Judgment thought to be largest ever
Saturday, December 18, 2004 Posted: 5:38 PM EST (2238 GMT)
DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- A federal judge has awarded an Internet service provider more than $1 billion in what is believed to be the largest judgment ever against spammers.
Robert Kramer, whose company provides e-mail service for about 5,000 subscribers in eastern Iowa, filed suit against 300 spammers after his inbound mail servers received up to 10 million spam e-mails a day in 2000, according to court documents.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle filed default judgments Friday against three of the defendants under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and the Iowa Ongoing Criminal Conduct Act.
AMP Dollar Savings Inc. of Mesa, Arizona, was ordered to pay $720 million and Cash Link Systems Inc. of Miami, Florida, was ordered to pay $360 million. The third company, Florida-based TEI Marketing Group, was ordered to pay $140,000.
"It's definitely a victory for all of us that open up our e-mail and find lewd and malicious and fraudulent e-mail in our boxes every day," Kramer said after the ruling.
Kramer's attorney, Kelly Wallace, said he is unlikely to ever collect the judgment, which was made possible by an Iowa law that allows plaintiffs to claim damages of $10 per spam message. The judgments were then tripled under RICO.
"We hope to recover at least his costs," Wallace said.
There were no telephone listings in Arizona and Florida for the any of the three companies. An e-mail sent Saturday to Cash Link Systems went unanswered.
According to court documents, no attorneys for the defendants were present during a bench trial in November. The lawsuit continues against other named defendants.
Laura Atkins, president of SpamCon Foundation, an anti-spamming organization based in Palo Alto, California, said she believed it was the largest judgment ever in an anti-spam lawsuit.
"This is just incredible," she said. "I'm not aware of anything that's been over $100 million."
I hope the trials against the named defendants have very severe results. With some of the proceedings happening under RICO, I hope some felony convictions result.
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 12-19-2004 07:04 PM
I get that too sometimes. People call and say "I would like to speak to Bill." When I say "Bill doesn't live here", they go "oh, aha, well since I am talking to you anyway, could I interest you in this and that, blabla".
I entered my number in the US Gov Do Not Call list and didn't get any telemarketing calls at all for several months. Apparently this "can I speak to Bill" thing is a way to legally work around it, although I can't imagine that it actually is since I didn't enter me or Bill as such, but the number.
I used to get annoyed when that happened, now I just say "I will get him for you" and put the phone down, then hang up after half an hour or so.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-20-2004 01:51 AM
quote: Michael Schaffer
I used to get annoyed when that happened, now I just say "I will get him for you" and put the phone down, then hang up after half an hour or so.
There's a similar trick which works very well with junk (snail) mail. For about a year after I moved into my current flat I kept getting all sorts of crap addressed to the previous occupant. I thought that once I'd written 'Not known at this address - please return to sender' on a few of them and sent them back, that databases would get updated and the mail would stop. It didn't, and despite registering with the agency that keeps a list of 'no junk mail' addresses, the stuff kept coming.
A friend then told me that if, apparently, you circle the addressee's name, write 'deceased - please return to sender' on the envelope and stick it in the postbox, the junk mail will stop very quickly. This is because the junk mailers ignore 'no longer heres' in the hope that the new occupant will start opening the junk mail; but if they think someone's died they'll make sure to delete that name instantly because they don't want the bad headlines that could result from a 'phone call to the local paper or radio station.
Anyhow that's exactly what I did, and within a couple of weeks the flow of junk mail had reduced from 2-3 items a day to virtually zero.
As far as direct marketing calls go, I simply don't answer any incoming call from a withheld number - I let the answering machine take it and if it's someone I want to talk to, I'll pick up while they're leaving a message.
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Barry Martin
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 203
From: Newington, CT USA
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 12-20-2004 02:51 PM
My solution was to take over the conversation and sound thrilled about it. "Oh, HI Mary! You're selling what? Oh that's fantastic, I could probably use a few of those and buy as gifts too. How fast can I get them? Is there anything I should buy with it? Oh, but how much is shipping? Oh that's not bad at all! I can buy even more! Now what was your company name? Aha, and in case I want to refer some people to you is there a website and phone number I can give them? Aha, and what was your name? Oh yes, and Mary, what is your supervisors name? You can't tell me, well, I didn't think we had any secrets Mary. I see. Well, what are you doing tonight after work? No, I might still buy all that, but I need to meet you first. Well because if you can't trust me, how do I know I'm going to get the merchandise I'm ordering without meeting you, plus you have a sexy voice. I can tell a lot about a woman from her voice, in fact I used to be one but that didn't go so well." Just keep going until THEY hang up, they're paying for the call so it's FREE entertainment! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-20-2004 03:24 PM
quote: Barry Martin
Same reason telemarketing works, people actually buy. I've had yellowpages.com call my theater about 6 times since I started running it in April.
It's quite a bit different to simply have a web site or an ad listing on some web-based Yellow Pages directory. Would-be customers have to actively search for your listing to respond.
Spam is "push" based advertising. The bastards try to shove their ads into your e-mail box whether you want to see the ads or not.
Fundamentally, Internet Service Providers need to get on the ball a bit better about this spam issue. Much of it would be defeated if the ISPs would just automatically delete any and all virus-infected e-mail that comes through their servers. A great deal of computer viruses these days are propogated by spam companies to turn thousands of PCs into spam vomiting zombies.
Some ISPs do run active anti-virus filters that automatically kill such malware infected e-mail. But typically you only see smaller, independent ISPs doing this.
Larger ISPs like SBC, Cox, America Online, etc. take the passive and stupid approach. They'll have some anti-virus filter available through their web-based e-mail account pages. But you have to manually make the server scan each piece of mail one at a time. And that's bullshit. Who has the time to do all of that if your "bulk mail" folder has 200 pieces of junk mail in it? Even worse, their passive anti-virus filters do absolutely nothing to screen e-mail if you launch Outlook Express or Mozilla Thunderbird and download e-mail directly to your computer.
Granted, it is pretty easy to "proof" e-mail via the web before downloading to your PC. I do this with all of my e-mail accounts. The problem is 90% of computer users do not. They just blindly launch Outlook Express and let their machines get infected with whatever comes down out of the queue. The end users are never going to get 100% on the ball about security issues. This is why it is up to the ISPs to do something about the problem. It boggles the mind why they don't just automatically delete malware e-mails. They're paying for all that extra bandwidth being lost to spam. It would only make sense for them to police the traffic on their servers better. They would make more profit by doing so!
The only reasons I can see why ISPs allow virus infected e-mail to lurk on their servers is they don't want to piss off a handful of computer geeks trading proof-of-concept viruses and other malware back and forth between each other. Sorry, but those folks are in the tiny minority. If they suddenly can't send their harmful programs back and forth between each other then tough tittie. I don't have the freedom to snail mail explosives and infectious diseases to other people. So why should those assholes out there have the freedom to do the equivalent digitally?
Anway, if the ISPs would pull their heads out of their asses on this issue and do what I suggest, the spam problem would be solved really quick.
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