Intel Spammer Wins Case

from the trespassing dept

The former Intel employee who (after losing his job) started spamming everyone at Intel with his complaints about the company has been told it's okay for him to spam. At lower levels, the courts had found that Ken Hamidi was guilty of "trespassing" on Intel's servers by sending the unwanted emails. However, the California Supreme Court says that it's not trespassing to spam someone unless there's "evidence of damages". Intel says they're trying to figure out what to do in case Hamidi starts spamming again. I agree that the "trespassing" claim was a bit of a stretch, but I don't see how Intel could be legally stopped from blocking the emails from Hamidi. As a company, they should be allowed to configure their email servers however they see fit. Also, with the rapid increase in spam legislation, there may be some way they can charge him with spamming, instead of trespassing - though, most spam laws have an out for anyone who has a "prior business relationship", which Hamidi clearly has with Intel.

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