Judge Rules That I Own Slashdot 386
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.
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Spam (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Spam (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Filing lawsuits against spammers has great profit potential
2. Some judges are stupid and you will go to jail because of it
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"
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.
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.
Re:Confused? Don't be. (Score:3, Insightful)
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 the entire court system should be questioned is weak logic.
2. We don't know enough about the judge's ruling to say whether this was really a mistake or not. We've only heard one side of the story. The judge will have considered evidence and statements from both parties. For all we know the defendant provided some reasonable explanation (e.g. provided sufficient evidence that this was a one-time mistake). It's quite possibly that this was a correct ruling.
3. Also worth noting is that the judge isn't really saying "this isn't spam" but rather saying "there is insufficient evidence that this is spam." So the judge's ruling shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of what the defendant did--it could merely be that from a single email alone (and without, e.g. proof that the same email was sent to other people) the judge cannot reasonably come to that conclusion.
So, while this makes for an interesting case to test what types of spam can be fought in small-claims court, I believe generalizing beyond that is not valid. I'm not saying that the court system is without faults--but this present evidence is weak indeed.
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.
Re:2 things (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
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!
Re:2 things (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Judges. (Score:3, Insightful)
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:3, Insightful)
The judge said, and I quote, "I am not familiar with those laws, so I am going to rule on the one I know."
I hate to break it to you, but the judge was probably just being polite. As a former judicial intern, I can say that most pro se litigants just get up and spout utter nonsense couched in legal terminology. Judges are prohibited from giving legal advice to litigants, so even if you are entirely off base the judge will just smile and nod periodically.
There is a reason lawyers go to three years of hell in law school, then the hoopla of getting admitted to a state bar. Once you accomplish all that, you are qualified to START learning about the practice of law. It is pretty hard.
That being said, it is not worth employing a lawyer for a $1600 dispute. Even if you win, it would probably cost you about that in legal fees.
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
Re:I am totally confused (Score:2, Insightful)
However, you do realize that this may complicate things even more than they are already.
Re:This entire story (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:well (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps the fact that the guy in question was somehow considered to be the owner, thus overlord, of slashdot is what makes it one of those exceptions?
My reading of it (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Dumbass decides to sue, purely because that kind of lawsuits seem to be his idea of entertainment. (Even he admits that there are more efficient ways to attack spam than what he does there.) Although he doesn't have the evidence that it's spam, and he doesn't seem to know what the laws actually say about spam.
3. Judge decides that, based on the presented evidence, she can't rule out that it might have been genuine stupidity.
Remember: email from strangers isn't against the law, and it was in fact how email was supposed to work. So you have to prove that it's actually spam, and not some genuine idiot who sent exactly one message. Yes, it _could_ have been spam, but that's far from proven here.
Also remember: the burden of proof lies on the litigant. Sorta the extension of "innocent until proven guilty" to civil lawsuits. If my whole base for a lawsuit is my claim that you broke the law, then it's my job to present all the proof, beyond a reasonable person's doubt, that you're indeed guilty. If not, then the only safe position to take is to assume that you're probably not. If there is enough doubt -- even Hanlon's Razor -- that you might not be, then I failed to make my case, and the judge is _supposed_ to rule in your favour.
4. Dumbass takes it personally and tries to name-and-shame the judge in a public forum. (Pay attention now.) Add some childish tantrum about how then she's also unfit to judge more vital cases like child custody, property damage, or rape.
He hasn't proven that either, but, apparently just as with his lawsuit, we're supposed to just believe him that the judge is unfit because he said so. And he's so l33t that he can't _possibly_ be wrong. He may not know what the law actually says, he may not have bothered to gather the evidence, but by Jove, if the judge didn't _instantly_ see that he's obviously right just because it's him, then that judge is obviously unfit.
Let me tell you how _I_ see that:
A) Good! That's exactly the kind of judge that I'd want there in a lawsuit about rape, child custody or property damage. I want a judge who'll just look at the evidence, and decide impartially if it meets the standard or not.
I _don't_ want a judge who'll decide based on emotions, sympathies and what some bit looks like when taken out of context. Yes, it's sad when a spammer gets out free, but it would be even sadder if judges started screaming "Off with her head!" like the Queen Of Hearts just because someone _might_ be a spammer, without seeing enough evidence. It's called rule of the law, not rule by emotions and personal sympathies/antipathies.
_Especially_ if it's a rape trial, I'd want the judge to weigh the evidence and make an informed decision, not to side with whoever he personally sympathises the most with. (E.g., "I'm a woman, so obviously the guy is guilty" vs "I'm a guy, so probably the bitch was asking for it.")
B) The whole name-and-shame thing just leaves a bad aftertaste. It looks like nothing more than someone's attempt at cyber-bullying someone who disaggreed with him.
It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate the school bullies more in retrospect. At least those had the balls to punch you in the face and deal with whatever consequences. Whereas the pimple-faced cyber-bully expects someone else to do the dirty job for him. As low-lifes go, it's one step lower than the real bully. It's someone who probably would have done the same, just never had the balls to.
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.
Link Exchange Requests (Score:3, Insightful)
It is possible for mail with the subject line "Link Exchange Request" to be spam, just as it is possible for mail with the subject "You won ebay auction #1234..." to be spam.
Unfortunately, the slashdot article was too vague to let us know if this mail was really spam or something else.
What I take from the post is that there is a guy name Haselton who sues people when he gets unsolicited email. This guy received a link exchange request. He sued the sender. He lost the case, then posted a poorly edited self-righteous account of the event on slashdot.
The thing we don't know is how the Link-Exchange-Requester got Haselton's email address. We also don't know how many of these requests the guy sent.
I've designed web sites that solicit information from the public. In every single case, the site gets bombarded with erroneous information. For example, I find it highly unlikely that George Bush really wants information on buying real estate in podunk whereever. Often people put in names of people that they want to annoy.
Let's think about Haselton for a second. Here is a guy who is well known for suing people when he gets unsolicited email. Such people tend to get spammers ticked off. And, what do spammers do when they get ticked off?
You've got it! They enterd the person's email address in every single mail list and request for information form that they can find.
So, what we know from this poorly written post is that a guy requesting link exchanges has an entry in his mail list that says Haselton owns slashdot. We know that there is no public information that makes this connection.
My conclusion from this information is that someone who hates Haselton managed to sneak this entry into a database of people interested in link exchanges, and that some poor schmuck who isn't familiar with slashdot sent a link exchange request based on that erroneous information.
It is possible that the Link-Exchange-requester really is a spammer. The fact that Haselton got email that he did not request is not sufficient to say it is so. If Haselton really did sue a guy for having a database entry with erroneous information, then this entry should be filed under the heading of "nuisance law suits" and we should be complaining about how litigation happy souls like Haselton have a a chilling effect on legitimate business operations.
Who is right or wrong in this case depends entirely on how the link-exchange-requestor get the email address. That issue was not mentioned in the post.
Wouldn't it have been easier (Score:2, Insightful)
To collect similar emails sent by this person to others? Wouldn't this establish that its spam? Given that the definition of spam is probably that it must be an automated email sent out en masse to people who do not wish to receive it, wouldn't it have been easier to prove if you had a handful of them?
Yeah, it's bloody obvious it's spam based on the content of the email, but a single email probably doesn't prove the case.
One other thing I noticed... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is that as a lot they seem to be able to spell and compose a proper sentence.
Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:well (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:well (Score:2, Insightful)