ISP wins $1 billion in spam suit

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ISP wins $1 billion in spam suit: The primary problem with any suit against a corporation is that, in law, a corporation is a 'real person' in its own right. When one sues the corporation the suit does not actually get any single person for any crime committed. Therefore, since a corporation cannot be sent to jail, only a monetary type of penalty can be imposed. This still leaves the actual person(s) who are doing the actual acts free to continue. Most times they will just start anew under a new corporate identity. This is called a 'corporate umbrella'.

Now, there is a way to actually get the people, and send them to jail. However, this would take a separate court case. Most times it would even be a state case, and not federal. To strip away any corporate protection one has to find the individual(s) that acted outside of the policy of the corporation, and charge them individually. In most cases this might only be just the one person who came up with the scheme to break laws. In the case of the Internet, it could extend to any other person, firm or corporation that acted as an affiliate. This would include any private individual just trying to make a buck.

The reason that an individual can be charged and not have the claimed 'excuse' that they didn't know that what the company was having them do was not legal comes from another section of law of
'when accountability exists'. This brings into
play the U.S. Supreme Court definition of the use of the term 'Reasonable'. Eg: 'When acting as a reasonable person', or 'Based upon a reasonable belief', etc. Any 'reasonable' person today online knows that there is a law against spamming. To send out ANY unrequested email to another for the purpose of some business venture is sufficient to prove a violation of law.

The real problem, therefore, is that no such case has ever been filed. Everyone is blind to the fact that there are many different laws that must be used to effect a useful end to stop spamming. The federal law alone cannot begin to do this. State and private attornies must be also used in the local courts also. Then, since many spammers will live outside the jurisdiction of a state to charge the spammers, that only leaves private suits designed to get the job done on expenses and to send parties to jail.

Our system of many laws leaves many gaps. Better laws on state and federal levels are needed to handle such cases with a single filing. In addition to all mentioned above, there is one other law that could be useful. It is the compounding of criminal acts. If convicted of the same violation even once before, a person may have the crime compounded to the next higher type of crime, and therefore the sentence as well.

Everyone should start to thinking about how many different cases can be leveled on one offense, and not simply about one and the collection of money. This will be the only way to actually work a good solution for the problem.; Posted by: DJnRF Posted on: 12/22/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use