California Wins 1st Anti-Spam Judgement

California Wins Its First Anti-Spam Judgment
Fri Oct 24, 6:30 PM ET
By Barbara Grady

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California won its first anti-spam judgment on Friday when a court fined a marketing firm $2 million for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails telling people how to spam, the state's attorney general said.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer brought the case against PW Marketing of Los Angeles County and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin in 2002 under a 1998 state anti-spam law. The law was strengthened last month to make it easier to sue spammers.

Lockyer's spokesman Tom Dressler said while this case was decided under the original statute, the attorney general's office expects in the future it will be easier to try cases under the updated, tougher law.

PW Marketing and Willis and Griffin were charged with sending out millions of e-mails advertising "how to" guides on spamming and long lists of e-mail addresses.

The judgment, which Lockyer said will be the model for future spam injunctions, forbids PW Marketing from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail, accessing computers that belong to other people without their permission and disguising its identity by sending e-mails that appear to originate from a different address.

The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin for 10 years from owning or managing any business that advertises over the Internet.

The tougher measures in the new statute include allowing individuals to sue spammers and collect damages of up to $1,000 per e-mail. Another provision forbids sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements unless recipients give prior permission to receive such e-mails. The old law made it illegal to send to recipients who had specified they did not want to receive e-mail advertising. It also required senders to provide a phone number or valid e-mail address for opting out on each e-mail -- something the company did not do, the attorney general's office said.