Bounty for Spammers?

The FTC has suggested bounties up to at least $100k for spam fighters turning in spammers.

This is more than is typically paid for turning in criminals on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.

According to the FTC - such huge rewards are the only way to get people to turn-in known spammers.

This is the dumbest strategy to stop unwanted email I've heard in a while. Spammers basically sell (sometimes illegal) advertising. The people they sell advertising for - are almost always by definition contactable. If they weren't they wouldn't be able to sell their goods.

So - if the spam is actually illegal - you've got a known party that has either knowingly or unknowingly purchased an illegal service.

I'm not a lawyer - but I'd think there'd be good legal precedent at that point to issue a court order to the company the spam was sent on behalf of saying "cough up the info on who you paid to spam".

To date - the only way to effectively stop email spam is with spam eliminator software such as SpamButcher.

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