By Dan Ilett, 5 January 2006 15:40
NEWS
A Florida man has been ordered to pay $11.2bn for sending millions of spam messages through the network of a small US internet service provider (ISP).
Iowa-based CIS Internet Services won the ruling against James McCalla, who sent more than 280 million unsolicited emails touting debt consolidation and mortgage services, a report from local newspaper the Quad City Times reports.
CIS owner Robert Kramer is reported to have said he will probably not see any of the money.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, commented: "This judgement against a spammer is undoubtedly the biggest we have ever heard of.
"Spam is not just a nuisance for individual computer users who find their inboxes clogged up with unwanted mail but for ISPs who are hit in the pocket by having to pay for the bandwidth to deliver and store hundreds of millions of messages."
District judge Charles Wolle also ruled that McCalla will be prohibited from accessing the internet for three years.
In 2004, CIS was awarded more than $1bn from 300 spammers after servers received up to 10 million spam emails in a day, according to court documents.
Comments
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1. ruth
Good! I hope the spammer loses everything & is hounded for the last cent for the rest of his life. Even with corporate precautions the amount of dross (some of it very objectionable) I get in my work Inbox is horrific.
2. John
Much as I object to spam, the fine is out of proportion to the offence. 280 million emails would not have cost $11 billion, as evidenced by the continued existence of the ISP.
3. Mike
I don't understand why laws are not passed to protect us from this unsolicited crap and filth. Surely a law could be passed that makes the companies being advertised in Spam responsible and therefore can be prosecuted and/or fined
4. anonymous
It is obvious why it was $11.2Bn...
...it is so that he can go back to court on appeal that the sentence was unjust, and he can be let-off scott free to continue his e-mailing.
Don't know what the Judge was thinking, but this is absurd. he should have been made to hand-over the profits he got - say he got a dollar for every lead taken up, and there was 1% take-up, he made $2.8M. Make him hand that over.
5. Mike
How did the judge arrived at $40 for each spam? I can't believe spammers get paid that much!
Still American courts sentence people to 200+ years in jail - Do they keep the coffin for the balance of the sentence?
6. anonymous
I would love to see this legal logic applied to the people who jam our real mailboxes with paper junk mail! We pay for the PO to distribute this stuff, we sort it and toss it, carry it out to the trash or recycling, and the trash haulers take it to the dump for a fee, where it pollutes the environment. Lets make the direct mail pay for the full cost cycle of handling paper junk mail and lets NOT give them any breaks on postage! We are paying for this junk 5 times over.