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Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/thespamreport/0,39025001,39116599,00.htm

Firm fined $2m in anti-spam ruling
California says "hasta la vista" to spam firm

By Reuters

Published: Monday 27 October 2003

California won its first anti-spam judgment when a court fined a marketing firm $2m for sending out millions of unsolicited emails telling people how to spam, the state's attorney general said.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer brought the case against PW Marketing of Los Angeles County and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin in 2002 under a 1998 state anti-spam law. The law was strengthened last month to make it easier to sue spammers.

Lockyer's spokesman, Tom Dressler, said Friday while this case was decided under the original statute, the attorney general's office expects in the future it will be easier to try cases under the updated, tougher law.

PW Marketing and Willis and Griffin were charged with sending out millions of emails advertising “how to” guides on spamming and long lists of email addresses.

The judgment, which Lockyer said will be the model for future spam injunctions, forbids PW Marketing from sending unsolicited commercial email, accessing computers that belong to other people without their permission and disguising its identity by sending emails that appear to originate from a different address.

The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin for 10 years from owning or managing any business that advertises over the internet.

The tougher measures in the new statute include allowing individuals to sue spammers and collect damages of up to $1,000 per email. Another provision forbids sending unsolicited email advertisements unless recipients give prior permission to receive such emails.

The old law made it illegal to send to recipients who had specified they did not want to receive email advertising. It also required senders to provide a phone number or valid email address for opting out on each email - something the company did not do, the attorney general's office said.