Porn Spammers Go To Jail
You had to wait 4 years and thought it would never come true, but yes there is a case that used the CAN SPAM Act of 2003. Before you get too excited and think this is the bleeding edge of a trend of canning spammers, hold up. This one involved questionable spamming practices that rival the life choices of Darwin Award winners. Here is the description from bizjournals.com:
The business model consisted of sending millions of unsolicited email messages that advertised commercial Internet hard-core pornography Web sites. Images were embedded in each email and were visible to any person who opened the message. Kilbride and Schaffer earned a commission for each person they caused to subscribe to one of these Web sites.
The phrase "images were embedded in each email" caught me. So you think everyone receiving these messages wants to see those images? This is your lure? I guess this was before the case of the motel that exposed children to porn was settled, at a cost of $85,000 to the motel.
Pumping spam is bad enough, putting images that some people really don't want is much, much worse. We can delete a spam about low mortgage rates and enhancement pills and forget about it, images linger much longer.
I'm all for protecting ones rights to read what you want and view what you want but that can not justify pushing those ideas or images on anyone.
Hard as it is to believe, I think these guys have accomplished the impossible: lowering our collective opinion of spammers.
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