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Microsoft Beats Spammer In Court, Onlookers Still Unhappy
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-09-14
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Microsoft won a court case against a British spammer this week, and was awarded what may be a record-setting amount of money. Nonetheless, some experts believe that "the case highlights a failure in the British legal system to tackle spam."
How is this possible? "Despite efforts by the Information Commissioner's Office to gain power from the Department of Trade & Industry to deal with spam, Information Commissioner Richard Thomas remains hamstrung," according to CNET's David Meyer.
Meyer spoke to Straun Robertson, of the Pinsent Masons law firm, who agreed with that assessment of the Information Commissioner. The Commissioner, you see, is prevented from dealing with spam originating from any place other than the United Kingdom. "He can do very little," said Robertson.
"What should change," Robertson continued, "is there should be a penalty where somebody is identified as sending spam - at the moment, if the information commissioner comes across somebody sending spam, all he can do is send a notice telling them to comply with the law. If they continue, the worst that happens is they face a maximum fine of 5,000 pounds ($9,353), and that's not much of a deterrent."
Microsoft did well in its case against Paul Fox, "whose e-mail messages were intended to direct traffic toward his pornographic download site" - Fox was "forced by a court order to pay Microsoft 45,000 pounds, or $84,177," which Microsoft "believes to be the largest civil award against a spammer in Europe." Individuals might not fare as well, though.
An individual, according to Robertson, could "only claim compensation for damage that has been caused, and it's difficult to show what the damage would be from an individual spammer - you might be able to show you had to buy a spam filter, but you can't show it's because of that one spammer."
Microsoft "got" Fox "for breaching the terms and conditions of its free Hotmail service," which "explicitly prohibit the delivery of spam to its customers."
Tag: Microsoft, Information Commissioner
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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