Spammers to Compensate ISP in a Court’s Verdict

A small ISP in California was awarded $2.6 Million during early May 2010 as a result of a legal suit it slammed on a firm that allegedly distributed spam mails.

As per the details of the case, Asis Internet Services got 24,724 electronic messages that the defendants sent under a business named "Find a Quote" from November 16, 2006 to May 5, 2008. This was the judgment delivered on May 3, 2010 at the Northern District Court of California in the United States.

Moreover, as per the documents released, the spam flood resulted in Asis, which catered to 1,000 clients in Garberville, California, to forgo considerable business. The ISP even lost significant money and time it expended towards fixing the issue. SCMagazineus.com reported this on May 7, 2010.

Asis alleged that Find a Quote breached the federal "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing" Act or CAN-SPAM Act. The complainant (the ISP) demanded $3.1 Million as compensation for all the damages it suffered, which is the highest sum that could be claimed as per law depending upon the total volume of spam mails concerned.

Other details associated with the case bring to light that Elizabeth D. Laporte, Magistrate Judge of the Northern District Court of California awarded the judgment.

Laporte computed that Asis Internet Services was eligible for getting $865,340 as compensation; however, she made the sum triple, valuing $2.596 Million, saying that 'Find a Quote', involving defendant Edward Heckerson, had used automated codes for dispatching the junk e-mails. TheRegister.co.uk reported this on May 6, 2010.

Laporte wrote that plaintiffs had given convincing proofs that Heckerson had executed an act which warranted forced destructions.

And while it may appear that the judgment awarded the ISP a king-size payoff, it isn't a record. In 2009, Facebook got $711 Million in a legal judgment against Spamford Wallace. However, it's being hoped that there'll be better luck for Asis in getting the spammers to pay the sum than what was for Facebook. For, in Facebook's case, the website's legal victory was spoiled when the spammer declared itself bankrupt, and perhaps mayn't ever restitute even a tiny proportion of the total ordered sum of $711 Million.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 5/19/2010