Receive Spam, Make Money! 275
Bud Dwyer writes "Wired is running the heartening story of Bennett Haselton, who was awarded $2000 from spammers under Washington state's anti-spam law. From the article: 'Spam fighters hope that if enough individuals take spammers to court, it could eventually drive the industry out of business. And, some savvy individuals could make some easy money along the way, and with a clear conscience, too.'"
Spammers in the US, sure (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd love to take these weasels to court, since I'm getting about 30 spams a day and a one week vacation can result in lost email due to a clogged mailbox.
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice to hear (Score:3, Insightful)
US laws don't usually reach outside their borders? Perhaps you've heard of this little skirmish going on in Afganistan recently... Or perhaps a little law called the DMCA...
It's about time (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about time spammers started paying for their sins.
Spamming is basically a form of theft, externalizing around half the cost of sending an advertisement to the reciepiant of the spam. That's clearly what makes spam attractive to advertisers (and their swinish lobbyists, the DMA).
The second order effect of this externalization hasn't been talked about in the press much. Ordinary advertising costs up front - a Tee Vee commercial for laundry detergent gets paid for before you buy the Whisk. A two-page spread in Time magazine for the latests SUV gets paid for before any consumer buys a 2002 Yukon. And yes, the company doing the advertising prices their product to account for the ad expenditure.
The fact that a spam victim pays for the ad before making a decision on whether or not to buy the laser printer toner means that market forces controlling advertising are vastly weakened. For example, the makers of "Whisk" laundry detergent used to have an ad campaign based on the phrase "Ring around the collar". During the mid 70s, the Women's Movement found this ad campaign offensive, so they boycotted "Whisk".
Fast forward to 2002 - you've already paid to receive an ad for Hotwet Russian Teen Sluts. No boycott on earth will have an effect on the advertiser - you've already paid for it, without being given a choice in the marketplace (maybe you prefer Hotwet Bulgarian Teens).
There's only very weak market forces that affect spam. We need government regulation of spam, we need the ability to punish spammers economically.
Re:hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, from what I've read of the various cases, if you sue the spammers and they don't send anyone to court, that's contempt of court and can be considered jail time. So instead they send out someone, weakly plead their case, and lose, and write the $500 check. To them, that's chicken feed, but only because a bare handful of WA state citizens are using the process. If only 100 or 1,000 residents did this, the spammers might actually consider changing their methods instead of blinding accepting the penalty. As far as I've read, only one spam corp has fought this, and that was the case that validated the law's constitutionality.
Re:Nice to hear (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything that the US government does has to do with US law. The 1973 War Act [msnbc.com] attempts to limit the President's ability to declare war, while also giving the option to pass a euphemistic "use of force" resolution rather than old fashioned (and honest) declaration of war. Bush followed the procedures of this Act under protest, as Presidents like to think that as Commander-in-Chief, they're not answerable to Congress. But he did follow them.
My point is actually that the Law is defined by Congress (50% of whom are members of the American Bar Association, so much for separation of powers), and they can pass any law they damn well like to allow the USA to project power - military or economic - across the world if it's convenient to them. If there was a political will, we could very easily re-define spammers as [h|c]rackers and have them punished anywhere in the world. Remember DeCCS?
Re:Inconsistency.. (Score:1, Insightful)
How the hell did this old anti-anti-spam argument get moderated up? Its been debunked so many times that I just start laughing whenever I see it. The moderators must really be smoking some good stuff today.
Re:Inconsistency.. (Score:2, Insightful)
If I wish to view something on the web, and the author wants others to view it, I should be able to do so without someone else telling me that I can't. The author is consenting in wanting others to view the work, and I am consenting in wanting to view the work.
With spam, my consent is considered irrelavent by the spammers. They are sending me material, without my consent or my desire to see it. It costs me money to receive their spam, as the ISP is going to pass on the cost of their bandwidth utilization to me in the form of higher fees.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Laws shouldn't allow for suing spammers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice to hear (Score:2, Insightful)
What is important under the Washington law is that it permits the individual to go after the party the authorized the spam. The slimeball company and servers actually sending the spam may be in Elbonia, but you'll find most of the companies/products solicited do business right here in the USA.
ie - an advertised web site might be in the Caymans. If they accept credit cards they likely have a US merchant account, which means a US bank, which means (likely) a US legal address.
Almost all spam is designed to sell you something. That means they must include a way to contact them. It also means they want it to be easy to buy from them.
Now if I can just figure out how to claim residency in WA state.......
WA has a gaggle of litigants (Score:5, Insightful)
I am one of a handful of people actively pursuing spammers in Washington. I am vice-president of a Seattle ISP and when I get bored on the weekends, I scan the Qmail alias file, which is 99% double-bounced spam. Under RCW 19.190 [wa.gov], almost every one of these is illegal as the spammer "misrepresented the point of origin" of the email.
I pick out the easy spams -- ones with phone numbers, fax numbers or physical addresses -- and I contact the spammer and say, "look, we got illegal email from you and we're willing to overlook it if it doesn't happen again." A fair number of spammers then remove all of our domains from their lists. The ones that don't get a few reminders, then a notice of small claim. Under Washington law, ISPs can sue for $1,000 per email.
Check out my lawsuit page [inwa.net] for some info. For those non-Washingtonians, you can get in on some of the lawsuit fun by suing junk faxers and telemarketers under federal law, which I've tried just to see if it works. The good news: it does.
Us folks in Washington State have a great deal of cooperation going on via mailing lists. We're gearing up for some serious spammer suing. And it is hard to collect, but it's not impossible. Once you get a dozen cases going, the money from one case isn't a big deal so you just send it to collections to fuck with the spammer.
Essentially, this is just a real fun hobby that happens to pay a bit of money. Oh, you might find this interesting: Zen and the Art of Small Claims [inwa.net].