Internet and e-mail policy and practice including Notes on Internet E-mail

←2007→ Months Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Click the comments link on any story to see comments or add your own. Subscribe to this blog RSS feed Join my blog network on Facebook Blog Networks

Home :: Email 29 Apr 2007 Oklahoma Spammer Fighter Loses Even Worse Email Last December I wrote about Mark Mumma, who runs a small web hosting company in Oklahoma City and his battle with Omega World Travel a/k/a cruise.com. Mumma lost his CAN SPAM suit agains them in December, but Omega's countersuit for defamation went to trial last week, and I hear that the jury awarded Omega $2.5 million in damages, which Mumma is not likely to be able to pay. This may be painted in some circles as a huge defeat for anti-spam activists, but it's not. Mumma has been what one might call an intemperate litigant, as most impressively documented in an interview with Ken Magill. Press reports say that Omega would have settled with Mumma for an apology and no money, which considering Mumma's string of losses was a pretty good offer. But he didn't. There are plenty of real anti-spam lawsuits going on, with real charges of behavior that is actually prohibited by law. A good example is the case that Project Honeypot filed last week against spammers who'd scraped addresses off their honeypot web pages. I look forward to following its progress. Update: Read Robert Braver's comment on this message which clarifies the sequence of suits. Omega sued first in response to threats from Mumma, but the outcome is indeed a train wreck. posted at: 23:01 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Email/mumma2.trackback

Topics Copyright Law - 15 Email - 179 ICANN - 81 Internet - 21 Money - 11 My other sites Who is this guy? Airline ticket info Taughannock Networks Other blogs CAUCE The AARP Are Spamming Again 23 days ago Box of Meat RIP JD Falk 78 days ago A keen grasp of the obvious Tourtière around the world 29 days ago Related sites Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail IRTF Anti-Spam Research Group Network Abuse Clearinghouse

© 2005-2011 John R. Levine.
CAN SPAM address harvesting notice: the operator of this website will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by this website to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages.