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Spammer Discovers His Insurance Policy Doesn't Cover $6 Million Spam Fines
from the just-so-you-know... dept
Scott Richter was a bigtime spammer, who was so proud of being a spammer, at one point he planned to release his own line of "Spamking" clothing (seriously). In 2005, though, he filed for bankruptcy (even though it appeared his spamming operations were still rolling in cash. That same year, there were reports that Richter had actually gone legit and he was actually removed from the infamous ROKSO list of known spammers (not an easy list to get removed from). Except... sometimes it's just difficult to stay away. MySpace sued Richter in 2007 and won a $6 million award against him (though, Richter claimed victory since MySpace wanted much more).
Now, Michael Scott alerts us to the news that Richter tried to have his insurance company pay the fines, but a court has now said that these fines were excluded from the policies, and thus Richter is on the hook for the fines instead. That seems like a good thing. It would be pretty troubling if spammers were able to buy insurance against getting fined.
Reader Comments
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dumb ass
he should have collateralized the risk into dividend paying bonds then sold them as securities . . . what a moron
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Re: dumb ass
That's hilarious!
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This guy sounds like a real winner.
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YAY!!
I'd absolutely love to see more rulings like this against spammers.. that and maybe a stoning ;)
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s/was/is/
Richter is still spamming. He's gotten somewhat better about hiding behind front companies, but he's still doing it. And he's running a registrar (Dynamic Dolphin) in part to reduce the cost of the tens of thousands of domain names his activities require.
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Not necessarily troubling
It wouldn't be so troubling if you could buy insurance against being fined. Who would underwrite something like that, however, if your business model is based on spamming people?
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Re: Not necessarily troubling
How would that work? Anybody that provided that would just be inviting insurance "fraud", like a provider that offered fire insurance that covered setting your own place on fire. I think it has less to do with the risks of a business model than on the fact that a spammer would just calculate the expected fine and buy it if it was cheaper than the fine. Probability and risk don't really come into play.
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This is funny
LOL, this is a hilarious story. I agree with Travis' comments about this guy: "This guy sounds like a real winner." Though he is playing the game by breaking the rules, if he can get himself out of the trouble he is in now, overcome the $6 million dollar fine, and find more ways of making more money and being under the radar, there are few things that will stop him. He should've looked for insurance agents and then talked to a broker about getting insurance for spam fraud! LOL
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