Interestingly Bob Egelko of the Chronicle doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a billion and a trillion, and now it’s been picked up by Reuters that fax.com is being sued for $1.5 trillion. The total spending of the US Federal government last year was $2 trillion.

In suits filed today in state and federal courts,
software company owner Steve Kirsch and another
plaintiff seek the damages provided by law, $500 for
each unsolicited commercial fax over the last four
years. If a judge certifies either suit as a nationwide
class action on behalf of all recipients, the figure can
be multiplied by 3 million, the number of faxes that
the company boasts it sends each day, Kirsch said.

That comes to $2.2 trillion, even without invoking
another section of the law that allows judges to triple
damages for willful violations, Kirsch said.

Last time I checked 500 * 3,000,000 = 1.5 billion, not trillion.

SFgate article

Innumeracy in Journalism