Don't mess with a spammer, you might get fined!

Filed in archive Spam News on November 28, 2006

Only in America a victim can get even more traumatized and forced to pay absurdly high fines. Is our legal system a big mockery, a flight over a Cuckoo's nest? Cnet News reports about Mark Mumma, a spam fighter, who received unsolicited e-mail from a cruise vacation company, and posted about it on his website, adding that he will sue the Omega World Travel:

"But Mumma met with an unpleasant surprise: He was the one sued in federal court by Omega World Travel and its subsidiary Cruise.com, which demanded $3.8 million in damages for defamation.
The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the alleged spammers. In a little-noticed opinion issued in mid-November, a three-judge panel acknowledged the e-mail messages in question may have included a false Internet address and a nonworking "From:" address, but concluded that they nevertheless were permitted under the federal antispam law known as the Can-Spam Act."

This is not only absurd, but also totally unjust, which is quite the opposite of what the word JUSTICE should stand for. The whole thing, "alleged" spammers suing a person fighting against one of the most horrible menaces of today's internet, is possible only because CAN-SPAM act sucks big time, and allows anyone to interpret it as one wants.

Once again, we need to make spam illegal, criminal offense, and promote high and severe punishments. I'm thinking 10 years in jail -without internet- would chill out any spammer, don't you?

Write to your congressperson and make them understand this!