Spammer lands $11 billion fine

How you maintained the willpower to do that without a smiley is beyond me

 

There's no way he'll ever pay even a small percentage of it. Even a guy like Donald Trump comes up woefully short on cash for a verdict like that. Bunkruptcy or not, you can't get blood from a stone.

 

I hate spam, but at the same time I don't feel one man should have to pay that much by himself.

I mean lets face it, I get tons of spam in my hotmail box and no one is going to tell me Microsoft doesn't allow it, or even worse, get paid to allow spam to be sent in my inbox.

Some of you guys see this as a victory, but I don't. Their are plenty of multi billion dollar companies out there involved in this type of stuff. Why don't they go after them?

Instead they go after the little guys. I want to see them go after the big guys.

All in all, he got what he deserved, but you have to hand it to him, he was trying to beat the system. If I'd got his emails, I simply filter or delete it. Big deal.

All you people who are cheering this as a victory won't be doing so when the government starts passing laws to regulate the net. How much does it cost to send 200 million letters through the traditional mailbox?

I don't know off the top of my head, but its in the hundreds of millions, because each stamp is 50 cents. The real reason the lawmakers are pissed is not because the guy sending emails annoys people, but because more people are using email now, and thats tens of millions of bucks the government can't tax and charge money for the way they do traditional mail.

Think about it. Use your brain. Why do you think every big city in the US has escort agencies yet prostitutes on the street get arrested? You think its because of morality?

Its because the escorts agencies pay taxes, and the prostitutes on the street don't. Plain and simple.

 

The difference between SPAM and traditional mail is that the sender pays the costs of sending traditional mail to your home. With SPAM, everyone pays the costs of bandwidth, time and resources. That's why everyone hates SPAM so much. It takes time to deal with, costs ISPs time and bandwidth (the costs of which get passed to us) and is a nuisance to everyone except the sender.

On the flip side, if we (as a society) stopped buying all of their crap, SPAM would stop. They SPAM because it's profitable to do so.

 

You have a good point. I didn't fully realize how spam translates to higher bandwidth costs for the consumer.

And yeah, if no one purchased their stuff, spam would be pointless. But then you start getting into mathematical probability, and out of a certain number of mails sent out, a certain percentage will respond favorably, like the fishing scams.

The internet is a double edged sword. Spam is just one of those things that will be with us as long as we have the net. Heck, I still get spam credit card offers in my traditional mailbox.

And I don't see any lawusits being filed against the credit card companies. Figure that one out.

 

Yes! Thank you atleast someone is getting the bigger picture. Thanks for that, very good points made.

Beside these facts I also want to comment on how people feed of bad things happening to others. Some of the comments were just jokes made which is fine, but others actually were happy that this man got into seriously problems.

Yes, he spams to make a living, but do you really think he deserves to get his life ruined because you get a some advertising emails.

Spam is an over-rated issue by far and its unrealistic on what measures the government would go to to spread fear in the public eye to try and regulate an industry it doesnt make money on.

How does a previous spammer get 9 years! That's makes no sense, just because bigger money is involved that the government doesnt get a cut on they put people as an example for 9 years! If you look at the bigger picture and compare to other real crimes, most of them dont get even close of punishment and I am not even going to elaborate on how SPAM shouldnt even be a crime and its just a BS regulation by the money hungry government.

 

INV, you're right on target and I want to provide one more illustration for those who STILL don't get what we're saying, because a five year old child could figure this out. I've got to get back to work on my sites but let me say this:

1.AOL just ran an ad demonizing the net. The've made billions off helping people get online.

2. All the facts show the Internet 2 is coming and it will be corporate controlled.

3. Kofi Annan and the UN want to regulate and take the Net away from the US, where its grandparent ARPANET was developed.

Any person with critical thinking skills can see where this is going. A law was recently passed here in the US because people were complaining about homeless people peeing on their porches.

So what does the government do? They pass a law stopping ANYONE from coming to your house to solicit, whether its a homeless person or a kid selling candy for a fund raising project at his school.

Do you understand now? First the government goes after spammers. Then they're coming after the rest of us. If you don't want to respond to spam, then don't.

 

This is probably an old thread...but damnnnnn...that dude is crazy. 11billion? Oh well...that dude is stupid anyways for spamming people all day long.

 

actually it was posted like 2 am this morning

 

if i was the guy id shoot myself

 

wouldn't his family have to pay it off?

 

He should be punished to handwritten apologies to all he sent spam. , that would keep him busy for the rest of his life.

 

Good to know your life has a price.

and his family doesnt have to pay it off as he is an adult and responsible for his own actions unless there is co-signing of property and such for loans which they would be responsible for since they co signed but for the fine no they shouldnt be to my understanding.

 

a billion dollars in damages? how is that determined? Sounds like the scene from Austin Powers......one millllion dollars....er no wait.....one BILLION dollars!