Spammer hit with six million dollar fine

17/06/2008

A court-appointed arbitrator has ordered a US spammer to pay over £2.4 million in damages and over £600,000 in legal fees after finding him guilty of spamming thousands of MySpace.com users.

The case of Scott Richter, from Westminster, Colorado, has lasted over 17 months and centred around a spam campaign in August 2006 which used phished MySpace accounts to illegally promote a website called Consumerpromotioncentre.com.

Steven Richter, Scott Richter's father and president of Media Breakaway, seemed satisfied with the outcome after it emerged that the fine was only five per cent of what MySpace had been looking for.

"We respect the decision of the arbitrator and we're not going to appeal it," said Steven Richter.

"We're going to pay the money he awarded."

In 2005 Scott Richter, and his company Optinrealbig.com, was removed from Spanhaus's list of known spammers despite being ordered to pay £3.5 million in damages after Microsoft pressed charges over a similar indescression.

This fine, however, will be a drop in the ocean for MySpace compared to the £117 million received after an antispam judgement against Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines in May 2008.