Florida spammer hit with $11.2B judgment

[SEM]

About time! But hows he going to pay?
Link
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/05/spam_fine/
or
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0,10801,107598,00.html

 

[Ashley]

11.2b he may never get it but it would look good on the balance sheet lol.

I constantly get spam into our in-box around 100 a day it is made worse by the fact that our company name have a co.uk and our trading name also has a co.uk name and all misaddressed emails are sent to the main in-box, pain in the neck frist thing in the morning sorting though them (not to even mention all the attachments) it would be nice to see some case law in the UK on this.

I like the last paragraph:

“But from what I understand, the reasons this spammer is in Florida, and one of the reasons people incorporate in Florida or live in Florida is apparently because that state has very liberal laws about [people] being able to declare bankruptcy but still have a whole bunch of assets left,” Mozena said. “They’re [in Florida] because they sort of expect they’re going to be hit with lawsuits or they think there’s a chance and they want to keep the big houses and the cars.”

 

[SEM]

I think we have someone fighting against uk spammers too..

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/01/06/spam_court_media_logistics/

 

[Ashley]

I have seen that but it was a undefended case (and even is it was defended and the claimant still won it would not be binding as it is the lower court). I cannot see this going to higher courts unless someone like eBay (not saying they are spammers just thinking of a big company that sends mass email) was taken to court by trading standards (i.e both claimant and defendant willing to go though the expensive court system).

 

[Ashley]

Even more interesting about email being acceptable method of service (something I have known for sometime and used against debtors) now is confirmed and binding, this has huge implications to firms/sole traders. I suspect HMRC to serve winding up/bankruptcy petitions for late payment of taxes by email in a year or two. This whould mean that if missed due to spam filtering the first time a company/person would be when it was gazetted (i.e. the same time as the bank, and as such put them in the situation of a frozen bank account and a payable debt when the money is in the bank and no why of getting to the money).

 

[SEM]

But what if your spam filter deleted these types of writ?, what proof would they have that it had been sent? It would then bring in ISP to the courts would it not. This will cause all sort of problems

 

[Ashley]

But what if your spam filter deleted these types of writ?, what proof would they have that it had been sent? It would then bring in ISP to the courts would it not. This will cause all sort of problems

There is already case law (COMPANIES COURT) on that and it sums up that the proof of downloading from ISP is proof of delivery as solid as reg post and more reliable then Fax. This is why I think that we will see more debt collection by email and in the case of debt collection the email alone will be proof of PRE-ACTION PROTOCOL for issuing a CCJ if delivered (this is where the case law came from), the ruling over the Admiralty Court was around spam not so much the issue of service by email (I also know of some who are serving witness statements by email).