Evo negde i sudjenje spamerima uspeva:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/87049_spam14.shtml
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State wins case against deceptive spammer
Saturday, September 14, 2002
By CANDACE HECKMAN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Washington, the first state to take a legal stand against sending misleading, unwanted e-mail, won its first case yesterday, against a prolific spammer who flooded the state's computers with advertising several years ago.
A King County Superior Court judge declared a summary judgment against Jason Heckel, a Salem, Ore., businessman, finding that he violated the state's anti-spam law. The judge ruled that a civil trial, which was weeks away, wouldn't be needed because the state had proved its case.
The law, which does not ban all unsolicited commercial e-mail, makes it illegal to send an e-mail to people in Washington that contains deceptive subject lines, uses a bogus return address or uses a third party's domain name without permission.
"This is a great victory for Washington consumers," Attorney General Christine Gregoire said yesterday. "Deceptive e-mails are more than just a nuisance, they rob consumers and businesses of money and time."
The state sued Heckel four years ago, after he sent out millions of e-mails advertising a product he developed. Among other things, consumers were unable to reply to the e-mail.
Heckel's attorney, Dale Crandall, said that his client would appeal.
"It is not a settled issue yet whether states will be allowed to do this," Crandall said.
Others, however, disagree.
By winning yesterday's case, Washington has become the first state to test its anti-spam law through the courts and finally win a judgment, said John Mozena of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, an Internet-based advocacy group of anti-spam organizations around the world.
"Hopefully, it will dissuade spammers from sending their messages to Washington state residents," Mozena said, adding that other states, such as California, are now testing their anti-spam laws in the courts.
After the Washington Legislature approved the anti-spam law in March 1998, other states began to follow.
Today 26 states have some kind of law restricting unsolicited e-mail.
It may take years to determine how effective those laws are. The public has been slow to realize that spam can be illegal, said Ethan Ackerman, a research associate at the Center for Law, Commerce and Technology and the University of Washington Law School.
"Whoever invented the delete key did a lot more than anyone who ever drafted a law against unsolicited e-mail," Ackerman said. "But it has to start somewhere."
Yesterday's victory was long in coming for Gregoire's office. The attorney general first sued the Oregon spammer in 1998, shortly after lawmakers approved the state law.
Gregoire accused Heckel of sending millions of e-mails advertising a brochure he developed called "How to Profit From the Internet," for sale for $39.95.
Heckel's messages began with the subject lines, "Did I get the right e-mail address?" and "For your review--HANDS OFF!" And when consumers tried to reply to the e-mail, the message came back as undeliverable. But the state said he sold 30 to 50 brochures a month.
When the case was first heard in 2000, a Superior Court judge threw it out, saying that the state's anti-spam law was unconstitutional.
When that happened, Washington's case against Heckel attracted the attention of regulators and policymakers around the world.
Then last year, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the law, finding that the only burden the rule "places on spammers is the requirement of truthfulness."
The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to hear Heckel's appeal.
A trial was scheduled for Sept. 30. But at a hearing yesterday morning, King County Superior Court Judge Douglas North said that the facts were not in dispute: Heckel violated all three provisions of Washington's anti-spam law.
North will hold a hearing later this year to set the amount of damages he will order Heckel to pay the state.
Until yesterday, the case had been through a series of hearings and appeals. Legal scholars have opined on both sides in the country's most respected journals.
Heckel finds a few allies in those, who believe that the Internet must be regulated uniformly and not by the different laws of several states.
"Right now it's a bunch of states making their own laws about how people in other states can do business," Crandall, his attorney, said. "It's a profoundly interesting case about whether the government can regulate business on the Internet, or at least regulate equally."
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P-I reporter Candace Heckman can be reached at 206-448-8348
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