Security
Spammer lands $11 billion fine
A SMALL ISP in the town of Clinton, Iowa, has just won one of the largest payouts ever extracted from a spammer.
The firm, CIS Internet Services, won $11.2 billion from James McCalla, from Florida, who was found to have sent millions of unsolicited e-mails advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services through the ISP's network.
A lawsuit claimed that McCalla sent more than 280 million illegal spam e-mail messages. Frims advertised in the spam had already been ordered to cough up a billion dollars in damages.
Prosecutors argued that under state law in effect at the time, CIS was entitled to $10 per illegal e-mail.
The Iowa court was told the defendants "falsely and illegally" represented that their e-mails originated from the CIS domain The e-mails used the cis.net as a return address to disguise the source of the e-mails to avoid complaints.
CIS acknowledged that it is unlikely to see any of the judgement money but said that it was time that spammers learnt that their actions would result in an economic death penalty.
News source: THEINQUIRER
- Facebook wins $ 711 million in a case of spam
- Twittelator Pro 3.3.1 released: Ultimate Twitter Client just gets better
- Spammer pleads guilty
- Spam still accounts for up to 90 per cent of all email
- Pharmacy Spammer Arrested, Indicted
- AOL Spammer Sentenced to 15 Months
- AOL to Give Away Spammer Stash
- The 12-minute Windows heist
- Lycos' Anti-Spam Screensaver: Fleeting Revenge is not the Answer
- Nigerian Spammer thrown in Slammer
- US Spammer Facing Nine Years in Jail
- Sender ID becomes Spammer's paradise