Judge Rules That I Own Slashdot

Bennett Haselton wrote in with this weeks amusing and shocking story of high finance, judicial discretion, and oh so much more... he writes "People still ask me if I make enough money suing spammers in Small Claims court to make it worthwhile. I say: What about the entertainment value? Recently I received an e-mail with the subject line: 'Reminder: Link exchange with your site http://slashdot.org' Finally, I thought, someone else who agrees that I'm carrying the site's entire success on my shoulders. I even hurried off to check the registration of the slashdot.org domain to see if they had made the transfer official in honor of my contributions, but apparently the domain is still being squatted by some outfit calling itself "SourceForge"." I'm shocked that a legitimate businessman would make such an error. Read on to see what Bennett does about it.

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: [e-mail] 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: [e-mail] Message-ID: X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: PHPMailer [version 1.72] Errors-To: [e-mail] 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

I for one welcome our new slashdot overlord.

sorry, I had to do it.

Re:well

Yes, he did. Our new slashdot overlord command him to.

Re:well

Ah, that's what I love about Slashdot:

Score:-1, Insightful

Re:well

Then please explain how this ridiculous "overlord" cliché can be rocketed to +5 Funny for certain topics but will be shot down to -1 Redundant for others

Perhaps the fact that there's more than one person with moderation points?

This entire story

reads like the body of a SPAM message - divorced of context and nearly indecipherable syntax.

Re:This entire story

The judge ruled that this was personal email so that the case would end, and the submitter would go away.

So you're suggesting that the judge is corrupt and prejudicial and that this case was not decided on its merits.

No coincidence

Some of us were involved in the construction of this mess called "The Internet". We feel responsible.

Re:This entire story

I love it how all the low-ids come out of the woodwork to discuss email and its spam problems... USENET, NNTP, nethack, vt52, and the finer points of X11 visual classes. Coincidence?

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.

Spam

This article reads like most spam, very confusing and all over the place. What is the point?

Judges.

The point is Judges will rule on what they know, regardless of the facts and laws at hand.

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

Re:Judges.

Or a big news recent case in Australia.

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?

Re:Spam

I'm not certain, but I think the two main points are that
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.

I am totally confused

Just what in blue blazes is his story about? I tried reading the whole thing and it still makes no sense to me. Who is this guy? What does he have to do with Slashdot? Is this just some kind of weird fiction that's supposed to be funny?

I'm baffled.

I'm probably wrong, but...

My understanding is that Bennett Haselton sues people who spam him as a hobby. His stories are entertaining and show some of the difficulties in implementing a legislative solution to Spam- many judges he deals with would rather discard the case on some technicality than enforce the law. It's nice to see people standing up for themselves, even when they'd probably be better off ignoring it.

What happened in this particular case is some spammer claimed he owned Slashdot, he sued the spammer, and lost.

Re:I'm probably wrong, but...

Are you stupid?

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.

Tsk. well let me attempt to explain

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.

story explained: non obvious logical leap

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!

For some reason..

I have a vision of you standing on a street corner shouting this post at passing vehicles.

Summary of the summary

A lot of people here in the comments are saying they can't make heads or tails of this summary, so I'll summarize it:
(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.

The important question is:

When is SourceForge going to return slashdot.org to Bennett Haselton? And what can we do about unscrupulous domain squatters in the future?

Confused? Don't be.

For all those who are confused by Bennett's "story", don't be. Let me break it down for you...

1. Bennett gets a spam [wikipedia.org] email.
2. Bennett decides to sue the spammer for reasons not important to the story.
3. Despite the obviousness of the spam, Judge decides that the spam was not spam but was, in her legally-binding opinion, a person email.
4. 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.

Interesting story about the judge.

From soundpolitics.com

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?

Dumb judge rules that a spam message was a "personal e-mail" exempt from anti-spam laws on the basis that it was written as if the spammer knew the recipient. So watch out for dumb judges in your rape trial!

Re:2 things

Think I found it here: http://www.courts.wa.gov/court_dir/orgs/190.html [wa.gov] The address: [e-mail]

Judge Judith Eiler

somebody get Judge Judith Eiler's email address.

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:

engaging in a pattern of rude, impatient and undignified treatment of self-represented litigants in the courtroom. This 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.

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.