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Judge Rules That I Own Slashdot
from the now-wait-a-minute dept.
So I returned to the e-mail, which began, "Dear Webmaster". Scrolling through it, I found the part that I was looking for (I munged the sender's URL slightly, to avoid crashing the poor guy's server from all the traffic I'm sure he's already getting):
As you know, reciprocal linking benefits both of us by raising our search rankings and generating more traffic to both of our sites. Please post a link to my site as follows:
Title: Work At Home Business Opportunities | Online Career Training
URL: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/
Description: Your Source, and Resource for starting a Home Business, or Growing the One You're In.
Of course I am always interested in growing the business that I'm in, which is why I served him with papers a few days later under RCW 19.190, the Washington anti-spam law which prohibits e-mails with a "false or misleading subject line".
OK, technically at this point suing spammers in Small Claims is really more of a hobby. I still think that the real future of spammer-suing is in federal court, if you can amass enough damages against a particular company to reach the threshold of $75,000 to bring a federal lawsuit. The idea is not to go after the bottom-feeders who are sending the actual spams from their Mom's basement, but to follow the money and see who is ultimately buying the leads. You can respond to mortgage spams by entering a drop-box phone number and a made-up name, waiting to see who calls you, and then telling them that the person who sold them that lead is generating them illegally and that they shouldn't buy leads from them any more. Next I'll probably try responding to some ads for pills or other shady products by using a temporary one-time-use credit card number that's only authorized up to the amount of the purchase, to see which companies are doing the sales on the back end. (The checkout forms for those pill-hawking pages rarely say the name of the company that will end up on your statement, but the charge on your card has to be from someone.) The only types of spam I can think of where "following the money" wouldn't work, would be pump-and-dump stock spams -- in that case, the beneficiary could be anyone holding stock in the company. The SEC can freeze trading in stocks that are promoted in pump-and-dump but it's still no guarantee of catching the guilty party -- even someone who buys a lot of the company might just be an "innocent" third party who knows it's a scam but hopes to cash in on the price spike (although FAQs suggest that this strategy doesn't work). But for other types of spam, it's already been well documented how you can track it to the financiers without even trying to identify the actual person who pressed "Send".
Of course there's another reason why you'd rather be in federal court. Small Claims anti-spammer cases may not shed a lot of light on the economics behind spam, but they are instructive for what to expect if you ever appear before a District Court judge for any other reason. In this trial, heard by Judge Judith Eiler on November 5, 2007, the defendant telephoned in to the court hearing and said several times that this was a "personal e-mail from me to him" and should be exempt from the anti-spam laws. I said that I didn't think an e-mail with the subject "Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org" could be considered "personal" since nobody who knew me would think that was my website, and in any case, personal e-mails tend not to start with "Dear Webmaster". But Judge Eiler ruled that this was a personal e-mail after all:
"Um, spam, these are anti-spam laws, which imply that they are mail just sent out in huge bulks, which would be the antithesis of a personal e-mail. And here he puts his name, in fact this is the person that you directly sued rather than somebody that's in a corporation or a company. The court does think that there's some indication that this is a personal-type e-mail. While it may have gone out to a number of people, it doesn't have quite the earmarks."
mp3 here
Below is a copy of the e-mail that the judge was holding when she ruled that it "didn't have the earmarks" of a bulk e-mail:
To: bennett@peacefire.org Subject: Reminder: Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org X-PHP-Script: www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/auto.php for 87.102.22.100 Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:34:26 -0400 From: Roderick Eash Reply-to: reash@tconl.com Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.72] Errors-To: reash@tconl.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="b1_b43cabef83c9f9123db7a78ef9a73362" Dear Webmaster, My name is Roderick Eash, and I run the web site Work At Home Business Opportunities | Online Career Training: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/ The other day I wrote you to let you know I'm very interested in exchanging links. I'm sending this reminder in case you didn't receive my first letter. I've gone ahead and posted a link to your site, on this page: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/resources/resources_home_based_business_41.html As you know, reciprocal linking benefits both of us by raising our search rankings and generating more traffic to both of our sites. Please post a link to my site as follows: Title: Work At Home Business Opportunities | Online Career Training URL: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/ Description: Your Source, and Resource for starting a Home Business, or Growing the One You're In. Once you've posted the link, let me know the URL of the page that it's on, by entering it in this form: http://www.theeashblahblah.com/linkmachine/resources/link_exchange.php?ua=_ua9&site_index=MTg4MTgwMjc%3D You can also use that form to make changes to the text of the link to your site, if you'd like. Thank you very much, Roderick Eash
Every time I write about a spam case, I swear it's the last time. I wonder if judges read that and say to each other, "I'll bet we can get him to do it again." With this ruling, if the subject line "Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org" is not "false or misleading", does that mean I can claim slashdot.org as my site after all?
So I don't think that suing spammers in Small Claims will make much difference in the long run. But the odds are that you might have a case come before a Distict Court judge at some point in your life. Consider that the same type of judge who thought the message above was a "personal e-mail", might someday be deciding whether you're responsible for $10,000 in damage to someone's car, or whether there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that you were guilty of rape, or whether you get to keep custody of your child. There's no joke here, just something I thought you should keep in mind.
So I'm hardly a victim, but it could have been worse; I could have gotten a spam -- excuse me, a personal e-mail -- with a subject like "Your g1rl says you n3ed a b1gger m3mber". I would have been pissed if the judge had ruled that subject line was not misleading.
well (Score:5, Funny)
sorry, I had to do it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
No. No, you didn't actually.
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
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SPERM CASE? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Score:-1, Insightful
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Re:well (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps the fact that there's more than one person with moderation points?
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Re:well (Score:4, Funny)
In Soviet Russia spam judges slashdot!
I got nothing.
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This entire story (Score:5, Funny)
US Law is like that. (Score:4, Informative)
[the story] reads like the body of a SPAM message - divorced of context and nearly indecipherable syntax.
That happens when you quote small claims court.
Let me simplify it. The author sued a small time spammer in small claims court. Audio, transcripts and original documents are provided for your contemplation, amusement and horror. The judge was clueless and the author worries that the judge may move up to where they can screw up more important cases. An interesting opinion about federal spam cases is also provided. The author is rightly frustrated and bitter.
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Writer's strike! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:This entire story (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're suggesting that the judge is corrupt and prejudicial and that this case was not decided on its merits.
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Re:This entire story (Score:4, Insightful)
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No coincidence (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This entire story (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It's similar to how all the high-UIDs come out to piss and moan about "teh MAFIAA", et al.
The low-UID people here tend to be real nerds, and enjoy talking about real nerd topics (something that Slashdot used to have a lot of), while the high-UIDs tend to be wannabes looking for free music, videos and affirmation.
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Re:This entire story (Score:5, Funny)
There, now we've complained about everyone.
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Spam (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges. (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, earlier this year I had to go to court over a child support issue. My wife and I were not married when our son was born. Rest assured I was a dutiful father and paid for our housing, food, and as much of the related medical expenses as I could, but we were dirt poor. So we took advantage of a State aide plan to help single mothers afford proper child birthing care. My wife's insurance covered most of her costs, but 0% of the child's. So, three years later, we're married and happily raising our son, when I get a bill out of the blue for $2000. Apparently, my wife was suing me for child support and the State was nice enough to step in and help her with the lawsuit.
So after the usual pre-trial rituals, and a lot of research, I presented the Judge with a series of marriage and Tax laws that showed that regardless of our marital state at the time of childbirth, in our current situation, the State was limited in it's ability to collect.
The judge said, and I quote, "I am not familiar with those laws, so I am going to rule on the one I know." And summarily ordered me to pay $1600 to the State. Maybe a lawyer could have argued it better, but when they Judge just flat out told me that nothing I could present him with would be considered in his decision, I kinda lost hope and just paid the damn bill.
So in closing, 2 points:
1) Most Judges will take the easiest path available to make it through the 9-5. Even if it means ignoring the obvious.
2) If you are about to have a child out of wedlock in Wisconsin and you are receiving state benefits, get married. Regardless of whether you intend to stay married or not. Get the license, have the kid and flip the State the bird as they foot the bill and get to ask for a dime back. (note: this is not legal advice!)
-Rick
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, three years later, we're married and happily raising our son, when I get a bill out of the blue for $2000. Apparently, my wife was suing me for child support and the State was nice enough to step in and help her with the lawsuit.
These two sentences just don't go together in my experience.
Your wife, the one with whom you had the child are to whom you are currently married, sued you.
For child support.
What is this, one of those "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine" kind of marriages?
Re:Judges. (Score:4, Insightful)
Turns out that the State initiated the lawsuit on her behalf, and because of how the case was being handled, she had no legal authority to decline their offer to sue me. The money they were suing me for was to go to the State Children's slush fund, where it
The really entertaining part, is that even though the same State law that they sued us under specificly states that the mother of the child can not be held liable for the medicare expenses, the State was perfectly happy cashing the check from her for the full amount (I had just blown my checking account paying for her knee surgery). The State wanted it's money back, and the Judge was looking at either ignoring the laws and having an easy day, or considering the laws and creating ramifications for the State's child services agencies and Medicare recoupment.
-Rick
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Legal Advice (Score:3, Interesting)
Real legal advice would be more like: Research your State's family, child services, and medicare laws and determine if it is in your best interest to wed prior to your child's birth. Make sure you ask about recoupment, the fathers role, and all parties liability after the fact.
In the State of Wisconsin though, you're pretty muc
Re:Legal Advice (Score:5, Interesting)
We were both military vets, so I had my health care through the VA. Her mother worked at the University, so she had coverage under her mother's insurance until she either turned 25 or got married. I was working 3/4 time as an LTE for the state and was in-elligable for benefits until my son was 3 months old. And my wife was unemployed at the time (full time student wrapping up a BS in agronomy, she banked money in the farming seasons and lived on savings over the winter).
So long as we did not get married, my wife was covered under her mothers insurance. So most of the pre-natal care was covered, I picked up the deductables.
As soon as my son was born, he was covered under the Healthy Start program in Wisconsin, which covers all children.
So the ONLY part of the entire process that was covered by the State was the actual birthing. Which I believe the total bill to Medicare (or Medicade, I can't recall which program any more) was about $3000.
Now, you may think that we just 'screwed' the State for 3k. But look at the alternative. Had my wife married as soon as we found out she was pregnant, she would have lost her insurance. We would have had to have turned to the State for 100% of the prenatal, birthing, and post-natal care expenses. And better yet, since we were a good married couple and poor, the State would have no avenue for recoupment of that money. The existing recoupment options apply only to unwed fathers.
We did what we felt was the most responsible thing we could. That year, our medical expenses were so high that I had saved every related reciept to try to get a tax break. But a year later, we came up just short of the amount needed to qualify, so, like an idiot, I tossed the reciepts. 2 years after that, the State finally got around to sueing. There are existing limitations on what the State can sue for. Specificly, they can sue the unwed father of the child for up to 1/2 of the medicare expenses minue any pregnancy related expenses the father pays, although, the State's lawyers usually ignore that limitation and attempt to sue for a flat $2000 fee.
Had the State not waited 3 year to sue me I would have had the receipts to show that I had already paid over $1500 in pregnancy related care, and the issue would have been settled.
Further more, my wife is not seeing a dime of that money, the State takes it as it's own. So this nonsense about supporting the kid is just that, nonsense. If anything, the State's decision reduced the quality of life my child enjoys. They picked a hell of a time to sue.
As for paying the State back for the Medicare program... I do it every month, it's called TAXES. And over my life as a tax paying resident of Wisconsin, I have paid well over the $3000 to the medicade program they used to help pay for my son's Birth.
By WI state laws and tax codes, a married couple's assets are considered joint assets. According to state and federal medicare laws, Mother can not be held liable for birthing expenses paid by medicare. And according to state marrage law, debt existing from prior to marrage and only hold lein against that debtor's non-joint assets. My wife is a stay at home mom. Any debt the State applied to me is immediately applied to her as well. The very laws that were written to protect women in tough positions are being used like a blunt hammer to squeze money out from anyone they can get, regardless of the situation. And on top of that, they were trying to charge me interest on top of that! Which is in direct violation of the same state laws they were suing me under.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the prosecution of dead beats and people who attempt to skip out of child support. But the State's persuit of this matter has been run on autopilot with no one in the cockpit to see where it's going. They are just so used to dealing with crap that they expect everyone they s
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Re:Judges. (Score:5, Interesting)
Man and woman divorce, man paying child support for his two children. All well and good.
Woman meets other man. They marry, she gets pregnant.
She reports this to the Child Support Agency. "Can't work, pregnant, ability to generate income diminished."
The CSA responds by upping the first man's child support. Apparently it is his financial obligation to support the decision of his ex-wife to voluntarily lower her income, and his responsibility to support her decision to have a family with another man.
Even more fun is when the child is born, and CSA again raises his child support, because "the costs of raising a three child family are greater". Uhh, what?
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Re:Judges. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey there's alot to be said for just having the balls to get up there and represent yourself. I originally went to law school because I was mad at AT&T for double-billing me for a cell phone and turning me over to a collections agency for not paying it.
$75k in tuition and three years of my life to get out of a $600 phone bill, but what the heck
A bit of advice on legal writing. Each paragraph should look like this:
State your conclusion.
State the rule/law your conclusion is based on.
Talk about other cases that have ruled on the same issue.
Talk about how your case is similar/different from that case.
Restate your conclusion.
Example: Dave battered Bob, resulting in serious head trauma. Battery is defined as harmful or offensive touching without consent. State law title ___ section ___. In the case of Scooby v. Shaggy, Shaggy struck Scooby on the head multiple times with a dog biscuit. Scooby v. Shaggy ____. The appellate court ruled that forcible head trauma with a processed snack food was both harmful and offensive, and upheld the battery verdict on appeal. Id. In the instant case Dave snuck up on Bob and bludgeoned him with a wet noodle. The attack in both instances was perpetrated with a carbohydrate-based weapon, and resulted in substantially similar injuries. Therefore, Bob should recover applicable damages from Dave under a battery cause of action.
Just use that structure, flesh it out a little bit, and add in the correct citations. Make sure that you have a legal citation for every source of authority you use.
IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, there is no formation of attorney client privilege, this does not serve as an offer to represent you, your family, or anyone you have ever met, consult the advice of a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction before taking any action, the forgoing is for informational and educational purposes only, and any and all warranties inherent in this post whether express or implied are hereby disclaimed.
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Re:Spam (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Filing lawsuits against spammers has great profit potential
2. Some judges are stupid and you will go to jail because of it
I believe that is pretty much the conclusion. It also highlights the issues with bulk directed e-mail as not being considered spam, since they are being addressed to the actual recipient in the 'to:' field, even if the rest of the e-mail is generic. It also shows that some spammers continue spamming because they know the loop-holes and there are plenty of judges acting on the word of the law, rather than the intent of the law.
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I am totally confused (Score:5, Funny)
I'm baffled.
I'm probably wrong, but... (Score:5, Informative)
What happened in this particular case is some spammer claimed he owned Slashdot, he sued the spammer, and lost.
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Re:I'm probably wrong, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Haselton's address was the only this particular message was sent to. But it clearly came from an automated source. Do you honestly want spam legislation setup solely on the number of recipients? If so circumventing such laws would be trivial, spam is automated,it wouldn't take that that much effort to automate only putting one recipient on each message. I think a much better metric would be demonstrating that a given message was automated and unwanted. Anyone with half a bit of technical knowledge call instantly tell this was sent from an automated source, and I'd take the suit it self as good evidence it was an unwanted message.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A guy, mistakenly taken as the admin of /. happens to have free time and money on his hands. (Not trolling, a fact) He receives a spam e-mail that offers to boost traffic to his website. (which /. doesn't really have a problem with) He finds a Washington State law that says the subject line from this spam e-mail is misleading, takes the guy to small claims court, and the judge who clearly doesn't understand the word "spam" in the e-aspect rules
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Spammer harvests all email addresses from all sites and records the site he got them from.
Sends out spams assuming that at least some email addresses are going to be the address of the owner of the site.
Judge claims that the title is not misleading.
Guy assumes that means that this means he owns the slashdot.org domain.
Tsk. well let me attempt to explain (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy has posted before on slashdot. He is a regular and in general well liked if considered a bit weird, but on slashdot, that just proves you fit in.
He uses anti-spam laws introduced in recent years to sue those who sent him spam in court. He does this himself, in small claims court and represents himself. He has mixed results in this and publices this from time to time. Sometimes it gets dismissed by a judge who doesn't think anti-spam rules should exist, or a judge doesn't think people should be allowed to sue, or in the more hilarious cases a judge shows a mental grasp of the issue that would land a regular person in the looney bin. This case is one of them. If a normal person spouted the nonsense this bitch did she would be wearing a straight jacket.
Basically, the poster received a spam, that used some "personal" details. Apparently the judge is unaware that spam can be personalized. It gets a bit complicated (it always does when you try to figure out the resoaning of the insane) but apparently the fact that the email was signed with a name was part of why it could not have been spam.
The poster then makes a link himself, because the email was personal, that means the reference to him owning slashdot must be right, therefore slashdot belongs to him.
It is a bit of a leap, but makes for a nice headline.
But basically this is just an other episode of "The spammers I sue and the idiotic braindead judges that rule on them".
There really should be a system where judges are tested and if they fail a test case they should be fired and every case they judged re-evaluated.
If you wonder why the legal system is so screwed up, judges like this are the answer. The various lower courts rule so absurdly that they are pointless, you must appeal since if you lost it is most likely that it was a dumb idiotic decission. At least the higher court judges tend to be selected from the ones who weren't complete failures earlier in their career.
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story explained: non obvious logical leap (Score:5, Insightful)
What I gather is this:
As a hobby, this guy sues spammers. On a particular case, he has an email he received from a spammer, which he submits as evidence. The judge rules that the email is personal, not spam. That email contains "Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org]", and the submitter interprets the judge's ruling to extremes. The email referred to Slashdot as a site supposedly owned by the recipient, and was "personal" according to the judge, therefore the recipient must be the actual owner of Slashdot.
Ok, so the judge got it wrong. Probably was being stubborn about the mistake too, and refusing to fix it or listen to reason, or so I would guess. What to do now? Go public!
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For some reason.. (Score:5, Funny)
Where's part 1 of the story? (Score:3, Funny)
I'll take dups to good stories over this nonsensical submission anyday.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2 things (Score:4, Insightful)
#2: somebody get Judge Judith Eiler's email address. make sure she's on lots of "personal e-mail" lists. if these seems unfair to the judge, hey, she's the one who ruled this crap isn't spam, it's personal
and come to think of it, she's right, it is personal. i take it personally the moron doesn't know obvious spam when it's in front of her face in a court of law. thereby emboldening the assholes who fill our inboxes with this crap every day, every minute, every hour, every second. the only cure is to give her an education in what she is woefully ignorant of. open the firehoses, fill her inbox with "personal e-mails"
Re:2 things (Score:5, Informative)
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Judge Judith Eiler (Score:5, Informative)
It does not seem, like she [metrokc.gov] has one... We'll have to wait until she — and others like her — retire or die out and get replaced by the new generation of judges. Of course, the new generation will be quite ignorant of details of some other new tech. Such is life today — unlike for the previous part of civilization's history, technology can now change drastically within a human lifetime...
Then, again, this particular woman has already been cited [state.wa.us] for:
This suggests, our (self-represented) anti-spam crusader annoyed her and lost for that reason — not at all because she does not know, what spam is... I admire his intentions, but he needs to partner with a like-minded lawyer, who would be going to courts leaving Bennet to what he does best — baiting spammers and collecting evidence.
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Re:2 things (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cliffnotes Version (Score:4, Informative)
Summary of the summary (Score:5, Informative)
(1) Bennet, a guy who makes a hobby of suing spammers, gets an email with the subject line 'Reminder: Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org/ [slashdot.org] offering a link exchance with his website.
(2) He sues spammer under Washington state laws against misleading commercial email
(3) The spammer argues in court that it's a personal email. Bennet argues that nobody who knows him would think he owned slashdot, and that therefore it is not personal. Judge rules in favor of spammer, saying that the email was a "personal email" and thus does not qualify under the law. An alternative reading of said ruling could imply that he (Bennet) owns slashdot.
Hope that clears things up for everyone.
To Whom It May Concern (Score:3, Funny)
Please inform me where I may be able to get the last 3 minutes of my life back. I know it's not a lot of time but life is short and this is a horrible way to have wasted the precious time we have on this planet.
Thank you.
The important question is: (Score:5, Funny)
Confused? Don't be. (Score:5, Informative)
For all those who are confused by Bennett's "story", don't be. Let me break it down for you...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bennett explains that this is important because (pay attention now) the same judge that wasn't able to determine what spam looks like also sits more vital cases like child custody, property damage, and rape.
That is, however, a rather weak conclusion:
1.This was a small-claims judge in a small-claims court. I'm not saying that small-claims judges are less capable than other judges, but clearly small-claims court isn't held to the same rigor as courts charged with child custody or rape. Quite simply, the purpose of small-claims is to get a judgment quickly (and cheaply), and for the judge to apply a bit of "common sense" to small-scale disputes. To generalize from an "injustice" in small-claims to saying that t
Interesting story about the judge. (Score:5, Informative)
A King County District Court judge and Federal Way resident named named Judith Eiler, who in 2003 taught a seminar to Washington state administrative lawyers in "ethical fitness" will now be taking ethics and sensitivity training at her own expense. This last part according to an article in the Tacoma News Tribune.
A longtime South King County judge was reprimanded Friday by a state commission for a pattern of "rude, impatient and undignified treatment" of self-represented litigants.
Judge Judith Eiler works in the south division of King County District Court, which includes Federal Way, Kent and Enumclaw. The division is based in Kent. She served in the now-closed Federal Way division from 1992 through 2002.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct said Eiler's treatment of those who represented themselves included "inappropriately interrupting them, addressing them in an angry or condescending or demeaning tone of voice, and threatening to rule against them if they interrupted or annoyed her."
Eiler agreed her conduct violated the Judicial Code of Conduct. The commission ordered her to take ethics and sensitivity training at her own expense.
The online brochure for the "ethical fitness" professional seminar she gave in Tacoma in May, 2003 (second link from top) notes - rather interestingly - that the credits for that portion of the program were "pending." Coinky-dink, I'm sure.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
More like: non-lawyer with too much spare time files an inartful lawsuit, blames the judge for his incompetence, then posts about it on slashdot to drum up publicity for his internet site.
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Re:Bingo! (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Being mailed using PHPMailer [version 1.72]
2. Addressing "Dear webmaster" about link exchange with "your site", slashdot
3. Providing links with GET url parameters to "linkmachine/resources/link_exchange.php"
And she even said that "real spam" implies mass mailing and is the "antithesis" of correspondence like this. Oh, also that he was suing an individual, not a big company or something (as though an individual is incapable of spam)
So yeah, maybe he did a poor job as auto lawyer, but look at what he was up against.
I think characterizing this judge as a moron is a fair assessment. Also, if you rtfa he's not downplaying this particular judge's ability to decide other types of cases, just that people in such positions of power are completely capable of making poor decisions that can wreck your life (and that this was not one), thereby exposing a weakness of the criminal justice system.
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