Gang of Spammers Fined 37 Million Dollars

The Massachusetts State Attorney General is attempting to hunt down the head figure of a major junk e-mail operation that was hit with a fee of $37 million. The penalty was judicially issued earlier in the week.

There is a minor complication though. The spammer in question may be currently in Russia.

The fee was the result of civil action as opposed to penalty for a crime. This means it will be harder to pursue the culprit. To date, their operation has yet to be shutdown.

The Massachusetts state government was brought into the picture as a result of the spammer using a Boston P.O. Box. At least part of the legal case was due to the sale of illegal products including counterfeit prescription drugs. Pirated software and mortgage loans were also promoted. Often third-parties actually sell the products, the spammer is only involved as an affiliate marketer.

Microsoft helped collect evidence against the perpetrator in this case. Recently Microsoft has been collecting illegal spam messages sent to "Honey Pot" accounts setup with its Hotmail email service. By strategically placing the email addresses on the web, the effort acts almost like a reverse email spam filter. Instead of stopping junk mail, the accounts in question only collect unwanted email. In this incident, over 45,000 email messages were collected.

In recent years Microsoft has shifted its efforts to prevent spam away from filtering and towards involvement in anti-spam lawsuits as either a provider of information, or an actual plaintiff. These efforts almost always involve its Hotmail division.

Back