PW Marketing, a Los Angeles company, and its owners were fined $2 million October 24 for sending millions of e-mails telling people how to spam, in California's first judgment under a state anti-spam law that stands to be strengthened in January.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer opened the case against PW and owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin last year, according to Reuters, but the state's anti-spam law had since been toughened to make it easier to sue spammers.
"Spam is an annoying invasion of privacy for our citizens and a costly burden to our businesses at a time when we're trying get the economy back on track," Lockyer said, announcing the judgment. "We will continue to strongly enforce our anti-spam laws to protect Californians from this high-tech pollutant. Spam cost American businesses about $9 billion in lost productivity and screening expenses in 2002, when spam accounted for roughly 40 percent of all email."
The ruling also bars Willis and Griffin from owning or managing any kind of Internet business for ten years without first notifying the state attorney general's office. They're also barred from sending unsolicited e-mails, disguising their identities, sending any e-mail with false or misleading subject lines or source lines,
The strengthening of the 1998 law that begins in January will include allowing individual recipients to sue spammers and collect up to $1,000 damages per e-mail message, and prohibiting the sending of spam unless recipients gave prior permission.
PW was hit under the original law's provision that made it illegal to send spam to those who said specifically they didn't want e-mail advertising, and required senders to provide phone numbers or valid return e-mail addresses for opting out, neither of which PW honored, Lockyer said.
