The Spam King is Dead (Long Live the Spam King)

The Spam King is Dead (Long Live the Spam King) Scott Richter, and his company, "optinrealbig" have filed for bankruptcy. They got nailed by Microsoft with a $20 million settlement for sending junk email to users of their Hotmail service. Microsoft has spent large amounts of money developing spam email software to help users of its email service avoid spam.

Mr. Richter's spamming has been so prolific that SpamButcher's email blocking is specifically designed to recognize messages sent by him.

The problem is that they managed to file for Chapter 11. Chapter 11 allows the entity to absolve some debts and pay others with the intent of continuing business. That's right, he's still in the spam business.

Each day this year, the company has apparently sent over 250 million junk e-mail messages to users worldwide. Sales have risen to over $11 million. Yes, $11 so far this year for sending junk e-mail.

So how can they get away with this?

It seems that everyone's favorite spam stopper law may be to blame. Mr. Richter says that over the course of the last few years various standards have been adopted for sending unsolicited email so it doesn't equate to spam.

He points to the CAN-SPAM act as a standard of what's legitimate and what's not. From a legal standpoint he's of course correct. CAN-SPAM is the law. From a practical standpoint CAN-SPAM does nothing. It only requires the message sender to include certain information with each email and some other minor regulations.

Although it has resulted in a few prosecutions, CAN-SPAM would appear to be the spammer's best friend.

SpamButcher is a spam catcher for Microsoft Outlook and other email clients such as Outlook Express. Its trial version is readily available from this internet site.

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