View Full Version : Spammer lands $11 billion fine



PUGalicious
01-06-2006, 05:06 AM
A little justice (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28733) for one of the worst unsolicited e-mail offenders...




A SMALL ISP in the town of Clinton, Iowa, has just won one of the largest payouts ever extracted from a spammer. The firm, CIS Internet Services, won $11.2 billion from James McCalla, from Florida, who was found to have sent millions of unsolicited e-mails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services through the ISP's network.

A lawsuit claimed that McCalla sent more than 280 million illegal spam e-mail messages. Frims advertised in the spam had already been ordered to cough up a billion dollars in damages.

Prosecutors argued that under state law in effect at the time, CIS was entitled to $10 per illegal e-mail.

The Iowa court was told the defendants "falsely and illegally" represented that their e-mails originated from the CIS domain The e-mails used the cis.net as a return address to disguise the source of the e-mails to avoid complaints.

CIS acknowledged that it is unlikely to see any of the judgement money but said that it was time that spammers learnt that their actions would result in an economic death penalty.

More in the Quad City Times (http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/01/04/news/local/doc43bb692ac9e86281138542.txt#top).

MadMonk
01-06-2006, 06:18 AM
Nice. I like that term "economic death penalty". :congrats:

workman45
01-06-2006, 06:41 AM
Hopefully these actions will stop some of the spammers. The term "economic death penalty" should get their attention.

mranderson
01-06-2006, 06:54 AM
Granted. However, if the death penalty fails to scare a killer, then why would a spammer, who is just as uncaring, be scared of that term?

PUGalicious
01-06-2006, 06:56 AM
Because money often speaks louder than any other motivator, including the threat of losing one's life.

Curt
01-06-2006, 02:36 PM
Good, I say hang the bastard. I get upwards of 20 spam mails a day and forward them to the federal trade comission. Until the laws get tough on people they are just going to continue.

Curt
01-06-2006, 02:37 PM
Good, I say hang the bastard. I get upwards of 20 spam mails a day and forward them to the federal trade comission. Until the laws get tough on people they are just going to continue.