ISP wins $11 million from spammers

Judgement in EarthLink lawsuit grants heavy payout.

US ISP giant

EarthLink

, a regular champion of the CAN-SPAM Act, has won yet another case against a spammer. The judgement passed this week in an Atlanta court this week grants

EarthLink

$11 million.

The spammers, Nevada-based

KSTM

, sent out millions of emails pushing mortgage websites, and the spoofed headers were found to be in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. The company was also charged with numerous breaches of computer fraud and racketeering laws. Along with the financial judgement, they were prohibited from engaging in future suspect email activities, and from using

EarthLink

accounts.

The case is one of hundreds of similar suits brought by

EarthLink

over the last decade. The company has been awarded over $200 million in judgements, although much of the money has yet to be retrieved from the convicted spammers.

‘This kind of case rarely yields much actual cash for the winners, as the spammers and their funds are often hard to pin down,’ said John Hawes, Technical Consultant at Virus Bulletin. ‘However, every victory pushes spamming a little further outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour.

EarthLink

and others like them are doing us all a great service by funding these important suits.’

Find out more about the spam problem at the

Virus Bulletin conference

(11-13 October, Montréal), where Rob Thomas and Dmitry Samosseiko (

SophosLabs

) will present

their paper

‘The game goes on: an analysis of modern spam techniques’.

See the full programme

here

or click

here to register now

.

Posted on 14 September 2006 by

Virus Bulletin