vendredi 29 juin 2007
When spamming is not enough...
Par Cédric PERNET, vendredi 29 juin 2007 à 17:30 :: General
Mark W. Mumma from webguy.net is one of those numerous active ennemies of spammers. He's been fighting spam for years, mainly by creating his own website about three years ago, SueaSpammer.com
He was posting everything he was getting from senders of unsollicited commercial E-mail, and had warned them he would always do so.
Now the beginning of his troubles started when a company called Omega World Travel (Cruise.com's parent company in fact) decided to prosecute him.
The company's main mobile for attacking him was slandering, as they had been called "spammers" by Mark W. Mumma.
During the trial, Mark was accused by OWT's attorney to have signed up for commercial offers.
Mark pointed out that "Cruise.com failed to use its real name, announcing itself as 'FL-Broadcast.net', a domain they have never owned. A complete fabrication."
Cruise.com's witnesses replied that they had never owned that domain, though Cruise.com admitted that an unknown Comcast Cable Internet subscriber in Illinois signed up Mark's e-mail address. They also admitted that they are not preventing anyone from signing up some else's e-mail address, mainly, as said by Cruise.com CEO Anthony Hamawy, "primarly because our competitors don't."
Mark has been sentenced to pay $2.5 million in damages, but a hearing made Omega World Travel having to choose between accepting a lowered damage award of $330000 or having a new trial.
Mark stated that "once a judgment is entered, I will have thirty days to file an appeal; however, without a little help from other weary and tired e-mail users, there is no way I can afford it. This lawsuit has wiped me out financially. If possible, I want to try to get a grass roots effort organized to take the fight back to spammers everywhere. If other Internet users want me to keep fighting the good fight, I'll do it. Appealing the decision in my case is important to get the war on spam back on track. Proactively going after spam and LUCE offenders alike needs to continue. I refuse to just lie down and die."
Considering how spammers are feeling "safe" at the moment, even though law enforcement is catching more and more, yes, we are definitely aware that this affair *is* very important.
The complete press release is here
Internet users can help Mark by sending money here
Finally, Mark's own website about the whole trial can be found here
He was posting everything he was getting from senders of unsollicited commercial E-mail, and had warned them he would always do so.
Now the beginning of his troubles started when a company called Omega World Travel (Cruise.com's parent company in fact) decided to prosecute him.
The company's main mobile for attacking him was slandering, as they had been called "spammers" by Mark W. Mumma.
During the trial, Mark was accused by OWT's attorney to have signed up for commercial offers.
Mark pointed out that "Cruise.com failed to use its real name, announcing itself as 'FL-Broadcast.net', a domain they have never owned. A complete fabrication."
Cruise.com's witnesses replied that they had never owned that domain, though Cruise.com admitted that an unknown Comcast Cable Internet subscriber in Illinois signed up Mark's e-mail address. They also admitted that they are not preventing anyone from signing up some else's e-mail address, mainly, as said by Cruise.com CEO Anthony Hamawy, "primarly because our competitors don't."
Mark has been sentenced to pay $2.5 million in damages, but a hearing made Omega World Travel having to choose between accepting a lowered damage award of $330000 or having a new trial.
Mark stated that "once a judgment is entered, I will have thirty days to file an appeal; however, without a little help from other weary and tired e-mail users, there is no way I can afford it. This lawsuit has wiped me out financially. If possible, I want to try to get a grass roots effort organized to take the fight back to spammers everywhere. If other Internet users want me to keep fighting the good fight, I'll do it. Appealing the decision in my case is important to get the war on spam back on track. Proactively going after spam and LUCE offenders alike needs to continue. I refuse to just lie down and die."
Considering how spammers are feeling "safe" at the moment, even though law enforcement is catching more and more, yes, we are definitely aware that this affair *is* very important.
The complete press release is here
Internet users can help Mark by sending money here
Finally, Mark's own website about the whole trial can be found here
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