waltky
08-11-2005, 02:33 AM
Sender of billions of junk e-mails settles with Microsoft
August 11, 2005
THE self-proclaimed “Spam King”, accused of pumping out billions of unsolicited e-mail messages, for everything from cut-price mortgages to sex pills, has agreed to pay millions of dollars in damages to Microsoft and to change his ways.
Scott Richter, once one of the world’s top three spammers, will pay Microsoft $7 million (£4 million) for deluging its Hotmail service with at least 50,000 illegal e-mails.
The payment is the second settlement in a string of lawsuits filed by Microsoft and Eliot Spitzer, New York’s crusading attorney-general, after the software giant set “spam traps” that netted about 8,000 e-mails that contained 40,000 fraudulent statements.
“People engage in spam to make money,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief counsel, said.
“We have now proven that we can take one of the most profitable spammers in the world and separate him from his money. And I think that sends a powerful message to other people who might be tempted to engage in spam.”
The first spam message was an advertisement for Digital Equipment Corporation’s DEC-20 system that went out on Arpanet, the internet’s predecessor, to about 600 people in 1978.
But unsolicited e-mail has since become a major problem, clogging the internet as it has grown into a virtual global community.
Mr Richter, 34, started his first company to provide bubblegum machines and video games to local arcades while he was still at high school near Denver, Colorado.
More http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1730675,00.html
August 11, 2005
THE self-proclaimed “Spam King”, accused of pumping out billions of unsolicited e-mail messages, for everything from cut-price mortgages to sex pills, has agreed to pay millions of dollars in damages to Microsoft and to change his ways.
Scott Richter, once one of the world’s top three spammers, will pay Microsoft $7 million (£4 million) for deluging its Hotmail service with at least 50,000 illegal e-mails.
The payment is the second settlement in a string of lawsuits filed by Microsoft and Eliot Spitzer, New York’s crusading attorney-general, after the software giant set “spam traps” that netted about 8,000 e-mails that contained 40,000 fraudulent statements.
“People engage in spam to make money,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s chief counsel, said.
“We have now proven that we can take one of the most profitable spammers in the world and separate him from his money. And I think that sends a powerful message to other people who might be tempted to engage in spam.”
The first spam message was an advertisement for Digital Equipment Corporation’s DEC-20 system that went out on Arpanet, the internet’s predecessor, to about 600 people in 1978.
But unsolicited e-mail has since become a major problem, clogging the internet as it has grown into a virtual global community.
Mr Richter, 34, started his first company to provide bubblegum machines and video games to local arcades while he was still at high school near Denver, Colorado.
More http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1730675,00.html