Facebook Vs. Spammers, Round Two 57
An anonymous reader writes "Three months after being awarded $873 million in a lawsuit against Atlantis Blue Capital for violating the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, Facebook earlier this week filed a federal complaint against 'Spam King' Sanford Wallace in San Jose District Court. Las Vegas night club manager Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw are also named as defendants in the suit."
These filings do not mark the first time Wallace has faced legal action; last May, MySpace won a $230 million judgment against him.
Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually these spammers insulate themselves from the effect of negative verdicts against them by moving all their assets to offshore accounts where the fed can't touch them and neither can lawyers looking to claim their $x million in damages.
If only we could literally take the shirts off their backs in partial fulfillment of their obligations we might start to make some headway against the spam kings. Any other suggestions?
Re:Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Imprisonment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rich man or poor man, they all have only about 70+ years or so on average, max maybe twice that.
A rich man that's sent to prison for 5 years loses out more than a poor man who has nothing.
It's not like a poor man is going to be missing out on party cruises to the Bahamas, and all that.
thats a lot of spare cash.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Judgement-proof (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
If it wasn't for viruses, there wouldn't be antivirus vendors. If it wasn't for online scam artists, there wouldn't be any cyber-crimes divisions in law enforcement.
Broken-window economics don't work, of course. If people weren't employed in these professions, they'd be doing something else.
If the government really wanted to shut down SPAM, it can easily do it by making up bullshit laws and detaining people indefinitely.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work....
Need I go on?
The most obvious reason is, it's too profitable for them, too hard to track them down, and there are too many countries for them to hide.
You spell like a moron (Score:1, Insightful)
'War on SPAM' (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government really wanted to shut down SPAM, it can easily do it by making up bullshit laws and detaining people indefinitely.
Yea, that's worked so very well with the 'war on drugs'.
Re:Imprisonment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I am stupid, but where did I say that poor people didn't enjoy their freedom?
Go look up the term "opportunity cost".
If you do not understand a simple fact that a rich spammer is likely to enjoy his freedom a lot more than some poor, cold and hungry homeless person in the street, then perhaps I'm the wrong person to explain stuff to you - I'm stupid after all.
My stupid guess is you probably don't have an idea of what it really means to be poor.
Sure, the poor can be very content and happy when they have their basic needs met. As Euripides said, "When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor".
Unfortunately for the really poor, that doesn't happen regularly enough.
As for your last paragraph see:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Homeless-Man-Smashes-Cruiser-to-go-to-Jail.html [nbcwashington.com]
Unlike Robert Jenifer, the filthy rich aren't going to be intentionally smashing police cruisers just to get themselves in jail for free food and shelter.