A small claims court judge in Bellevue, Washington, awarded Bennett Haselton $2,000 for getting spam.
The judge on Monday found in Haselton's favor in four separate cases for $500 apiece. In each case, he ruled that the defendants, none of whom bothered to show up, had sent Haselton deceptive e-mail solicitations prohibited under Washington state's 3-year-old anti-spam law.
The four cases all involved spam in which the sender used a false e-mail address in the "from" field, a no-no under the law. One was a chain letter asking for five dollars from a guy from Indiana who used his real name. Two were from spamming companies -- one in California -- hawking their services. And the last was a company offering seminars on how to make money on the stock market.
Although this is not the first successful anti-spam case, it's part of a trend that's been on the upswing since the Washington State Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the law in June. And it's another small victory in the fight against spam.
"From a community standpoint, it's a very big win," said Tom Geller of the SpamCon Foundation. "Each anti-spam victory shows others that they can act effectively."
As the webmaster at the anti-censorship site Peacefire, which provides freeware that disables Web filters, Haselton has experience working the system and fighting for a cause.
"When I take on things like this, I have high hopes for it," he said. "This isn't just to make money. If every time a spammer sent something, they got sued, it would become too expensive for spammers to spam."
Haselton started filing suits in small claims court, at $21 a pop, in June, immediately after the law was upheld. He has about 30 other cases winding through the system.
Although he was victorious in these four specific cases, Haselton said it isn't as easy as it looks. Some judges told him small claims court was the wrong venue, and others told him the law only allows him to recover damages, of which there were none. Any hiccup in the process usually meant a two- to three-month delay.
Eventually, he hopes an appeal to a higher court on a lost case will establish binding guidelines. "Until then, it will be a jungle to navigate," Haselton said, although he expects things will get easier now that he knows the ropes.
Haselton is not the only one cashing in. Martin Palmer, also from Washington state, claims to have collected over $18,000 from spammers, mostly through out-of-court settlements, a mark Haselton hopes to beat.
Bruce Miller, a free-lance writer from Seattle, was the first person to collect money under the new law, through an out-of-court settlement in 1998. Since then he's collected $4,000 in total, and has set up a website to show others how.
"I'd like to see an army of anti-spam litigants going after these people to make a difference," Miller said. He is currently working on a book about how to sue spammers.
One important source of assistance has been the Washington State Attorney General's office, which, besides defending the constitutionality of the law, has set up a website on how to fight spam.
Although 19 states have anti-spam laws of some kind, only a few of them allow private citizens to sue in small claims court as they can in Washington state.
In April, Ellen Spertus, aka the Sexiest Geek Alive, became the first person to win a suit in small claims court under California's anti-spam law. She won a judgment for $50 in damages from now defunct Kozmo.com.
Spam fighters hope that if enough individuals take spammers to court, it could eventually drive the industry out of business. And, some savvy individuals could make some easy money along the way, and with a clear conscience, too.
The movement is largely based on an older effort to fight so-called "junk faxes."
Under a little-known federal law passed in 1991, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, it is illegal to fax an advertisement without permission, anywhere in the United States. Under the law, those who receive a fax can sue the company advertised (not the junk-faxing company) for up to $1,500 in small claims court.
Rodney Joffe, a marketing executive from Phoenix who got fed up with junk faxes, has won nine junk fax cases in small claims court this year, all but one of the judgments for $1,500. He has five more cases pending.
"It's not hard at all," Joffe said. "The average person can do this."
But Robert Braver, president of a small software company in Norman, Oklahoma, disagrees. Although he has won about $100,000 in judgments on junk fax cases over the last three years, he says it's more of a civic duty than a cash cow.
"No one I know that does this, does this to make money," Braver said. "It's not a money-making venture. It's more of a calling. You're lucky if you cover expenses."
For information on how to file, try Junkfaxes.
