Fergie's Tech Blog

Oklahoma Man Wins $10 Million Judgment Against a Spammer

John Levine writes on CircleID:

On Thursday the 22nd, Robert Braver, an Oklahoma ISP owner who is a long time activist against both spam and junk faxes, received a default judgment of over $10 million against high profile spammer Robert Soloway and his company Newport Internet Marketing. Soloway has frequently been cited as one of the ten largest spammers in the world.

Braver originally filed his case in state court, but Soloway moved the case to Federal court earlier this year. Soloway was initially represented by attorneys, but the attorneys withdrew from the case and since then, although Solway said he'd be representing himself, he hasn't responded in the case, although he has been actively sending comments about it to usenet and mailing lists.

The decision is based both on the Federal CAN SPAM act and Oklahoma law. Based on Braver's having received Soloway's spam on about 200 separate dates, and that the spam breaks two separate Oklahoma laws both of which provide for $25,000/day in damages, the total comes to $10,075,000. The decision further forbids Soloway from future violations of CAN SPAM.

Microsoft also won a judgment against Soloway, but Braver's is considerably broader in that it has the CAN SPAM injunction. While it is unlikely that Braver will ever collect any of his $10 million, since Microsoft already has gotten whatever there is to be gotten, if Soloway violates the injunction, he could be jailed for contempt. We have heard reports that Soloway is still sending spam that violates CAN SPAM, so more legal action in the near future appears likely.

posted by Fergie @ 9/26/2005 04:04:00 PM