Spammers ordered to pay tiny ISP whopping $2.6m

A small internet service provider has been awarded nearly $2.6m in a lawsuit it filed against a company that sent just under 25,000 spam messages over an 18-month period. Although it's questionable whether Asis Internet Services will ever see a penny of that windfall, the judgment is testament to the awesome power of CAN-SPAM …

[Anonymous Coward]

America is insane

$10 an email and $80.000 a song.

I know you have laws and breaking them is wrong but you're still fucking insane.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Marcus...

So you think spammers should only pay say a $50 fine, despite, usally, selling illegal product, forcing ISP's and businesses to spend 10's of thousands to block it and potentially cripple a business by linking to virus ridden sites.

Nope, seems fair to me.

[alien anthropologist]

Not insane at all...

What do you rather want - a wussy fine that the spammers can afford? And yes they spam because it is worth a lots of $'s and they can more than afford wussy fines.

Or hit them so hard with a fine that will force them (an illegal entity) into (hopefully) bankruptcy or the like?

What do you want - a potential penalty for spamming that will make many people think twice before attempting it? Or one where the potential gains are worth the risk? (sure, hefty fines will not stop everyone - but if it stops some, it is well worth it).

Perhaps you cannot remember a mostly spam free Internet where the worse spam going around was the Dave Rhode's Letter... Well I can. And would like to see the Internet cleaned up and a vast percentage of Internet bandwidth and resource be put to better use than processing billions of spam mails every day.

So this is not about the US's sanity when it comes to trivial litigation... A pity that your ameriphobia prevents you from realising that.

[Daren Nestor]

You've missed his point terribly

Ameriphilia?

He's saying that they were only charged $10 per spam message, where downloading a song can lead to a charge of $80,000 per song, and suggesting that the damages for downloading a song are, perhaps, outrageous.

[Ed Gould]

Not Insane at All?

I agree with you that getting big fines is somewhat of a deterrent, BUT and there is always a BUT.

It is not difficult to hide the money in say the Cayman Islands (or any other country that has banking secrecy). It is a small effort to run a company out of the Cayman's and the government cannot force them to hand over anything. There is no way a spam conviction can be turned into a terrorist act I don't care what Bush and Chenney would try any country that would see that wouldn't even answer a phone call from a government that would try anything like that (I wouldn't blame them).

[Anonymous Coward]

Punishment is meant to be a deterrent

Spammers should pay dearly. The punishment is meant to be a deterrent and PUNISHMENT for their crimes. All Spammers should do prison time in addition to serious fines IMO, just like pirates. These people try to hide behind their computers to commit crimes and they should pay the price.

[Herby]

The big question is:

Will they collect?

Rarely with nice large judgements does the plaintiff actually collect any money. When the spammer is sucked dry and is lifeless having paid the aforementioned amount will it be time to celebrate. Until then, it is just a number written on a piece of paper, which isn't worth much (unfortunately!).

[Keith T]

It is good to see a court doing something

I'd like to see more legal and criminal action against spammers and producers of malware.

[TeeCee]

Spam and P2P?

This 'ere Clue Stick sez Apples != Pears......

2.6m for this is getting off lightly. This is one crime where hanging, drawing and quartering would be a proportionate sentence.

Mine's the one one with a copy of Judge Jeffries' "A niƒe and accurate guide to ƒentencing" in the pocket.

[Hanni Ali]

Error...

"25,000 spam messages over an 18-month period"

but "200,000 a day"???

The figures in this article just don't make any sense...

[Colin Miller]

other spammers?

"25,000 spam messages over an 18-month period"

but "200,000 a day"???

The figures in this article just don't make any sense...

I read that as they receive 200,000 spams a day, and 45 of them were from this gang.

25,00 over 1.5 years is 45 a day

[Robert Carnegie]

The numbers

Find a Quote sent 25,000 spams. 200,000 is the total from all spammers to i!this one ISP.

Spam can't be entirely eliminated; any twit may take it into their head to send an improper unsolicited advertisement to their address book of family, friends, colleagues and other contacts. And if there wasn't a vigorous online culture of scams by strangers, then when they did occur, more of us would be vulnerable. Nevertheless I want the professional spam-spewers to be nailed to the wall.

[Jeff 11]

Prison, not fines

Spammers just liquidate their worthless companies and open up shop under a different name. Even small fines under a grand are no deterrent when this is so easy to do. Prison is a more sensible option, if you actually want to combat the problem.

[Eddie Johnson]

Followups

How 'bout a followup article on some of those other cases you linked to, telling us the collections status and whether Spamford is in the poorhouse or still owns million dollar properties?

Judgments are but a step along the road and if the spammers are able to stonewall the collections efforts it will prove that ultimately CAN-SPAM is worthless as I suspect.

[The Beer Monster]

You pay?

Who's "you"?

The prat with the botted box that's sending them all?

The person who's been dumped in the reply-to?

The person who owns the website that's hiding the dodgy links?

[Jim Morrow]

Rejoice! The spam problem is solved!

Fuck me! I wonder why nobody else had ever thought of this.

Paris icon because well.. just because...

[Acme Fixer]

Gooooood Luck!

Probably about a snowball's chance in hell of collecting it. But the punishment should be appropriate to the crime, which is it not. The spammers generate 90 percent of all emails, and should have to pay 90 percent of all email servers and email bandwidth used by the ISPs. Then maybe the SOBs would almost get their just punishment. Unfortunately there is no punishment for the amount of aggravation and consternation the users suffer.