Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know
America Online is raffling a Hummer H2 and almost $100,000 in gold bars and cash that it won after a lawsuit against a spammer who peddled enhancement pills and more, its first lawsuit under the CAN-SPAM Act.
The loot has been taken from a man who AOL only identifies as the New Hampshire Spammer. Aged 20 when AOL sued, AOL says his business employed 40 computers dedicated to pumping out millions of spam messages a day – with offers for ephedra, male enhancement pills and other dubious products.
On one day alone in January 2004, the New Hampshire Spammer's efforts triggered more than 100,000 complaints from AOL members. He was finally caught in March 2004.
In addition to getting the gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle, gold bars and cash, AOL obtained a $13 million judgement against other members of the spam gang.
As a thank-you to AOL members who helped identify the spammer by clicking a Report Spam button when they received one of his emails, the company is now giving away all of the confiscated items in a draw, open until 19th August. Entrants must be US residents but don't need to be AOL members. The company has previously raffled another spammer's Porsche Boxster.
AOL warned spammers: "AOL will find you and sue you. And AOL will do everything it can to make sure its members end up with any money you made as a spammer."
According to AOL, spam is down more than 85% on its service, as measured by member referrals, and AOL's anti-spam filters are blocking more than 1.4 billion pieces of spam each day, compared to a high of 2.4 billion messages blocked in a single day in 2003.
