California Congressman Sued for Sending Spam

A California woman is suing her Congressman, John Doolittle for sending her spam.

Sindeelou Thomson said that she received an "email update" from Doolittle. She replied to him with an email asking for $1000.

Thomson said that she never signed up for such updates, and that she was not immediately removed from the mailing list after she requested to be.

Ten days later she says she received more spam. This prompted her to call Doolittle's office, and then file a lawsuit against him for $2000.

According to Doolittle's office, their mailing lists are currently manually subscribed. However, this version of the article quotes Doolittle's spokesman as saying email sources have previously been gathered from "various sources". This means addresses may have been culled from any number of publicly available sources. One of the best ways to prevent spam email is to avoid publicly publishing your address.

While California law may be stricter, the CAN-SPAM act only requires spammers honor opt-out agreements. Even then, CAN-SPAM apparently has exceptions for political speech Thus far, CAN-SPAM has not proven to be much of a spam solution.

Doolittle has requested the case be elevated to federal court. This is probably not what Sindeelou was expecting. There have been several recent cases of enthusiastic anti-spammers having the tables turned on them - in some cases costing them thousands in legal fees. Hopefully she has a clue what she's getting into.

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