[KLUG Members] SUE A SPAMMER TODAY

[Mike Morrett]

Just replace all the "Windows" references with "computer".

Mike

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BRIAN LIVINGSTON:     "Window Manager"     InfoWorld.com
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Monday, April 22, 2002

SUE A SPAMMER TODAY

Posted April 19, 2002 01:01 PM  Pacific Time


I WROTE LAST week that Windows users can stop spam.
Like uninvited faxes, unsolicited commercial e-mail
should be against federal law because the recipients
pay for spam through higher monthly fees at ISPs, and
in many other ways.

Although Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Germany
have legislatively canned spam, Congress hasn't.
That's why I'm so pleased to see that ordinary people
are beating spammers by using a potent tool -- state laws.

This was brought home recently when I learned that my
research director, Ben Livingston, had collected
substantial fines from spammers and other human crud.
(Despite the same last name, Ben and I are unrelated.)

Ben has so far received more than $2,500 on behalf of a
small ISP for which he works part time. He sues
spammers, junk faxers, and illegal automated
telemarketers in small claims court, which is easy to
do without a lawyer. His efforts have also reaped
$5,600 still in the collection process.

One of his latest prizes is a settlement from Richard
Scott of the Cyberdata group. According to Ben, this
group sends out spam saying, "You can have a profit of
over $2 million," hyping a CD that supposedly has 200
million e-mail addresses.

Ben has proudly scanned the payment and posted it to
his Web site at
www.smallclaim.info/cyberdata/check.gif. Work your way
back from that address to Ben's home page, where
you'll find several pages of inspiring victories. It
also links to his zine that describes federal and
state laws against intrusive marketing and explains
how you can become "a small claims warrior."

Although spam isn't yet a federal offense, the laws of
California and Washington state are particularly
strong. You can research the laws of your state at
http://www.spamlaws.com/state . As Ben's zine says,
"Some may fear legalese, but not the warrior."

Washington law allows people to collect $500 to $1,000
for each received e-mail that uses a false address or
a third party's domain name (such as Hotmail.com)
without authorization, as most spam does.

Many sites, such as Spamcop.net, help you analyze the
source of spam. But Ben simply sues the person at
whatever address or phone is advertised in the
message. (Or he feigns interest in the product until
he receives an address or phone.)

Spammers may ignore small claims courts, so Ben hands
his verdicts to collection agencies. They can insert
"defaulted on court judgment" into a spammer's
permanent credit record. This makes loans hard to get,
so many spammers offer a cash settlement even before a
case goes to court.

I'm not a litigious person. But spam is quadrupling
every year and will drown the Internet.

So I'm looking for 1,000 Windows users to do what Ben's
doing. That should make spam unpalatable.

Do yourself and humanity a favor.

Go get 'em.

--
I'll never give it up. You'll have to pry my coffee mug from my cold
dead hand!