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Spammer Admits to Charges & will Pay Penalty of $100,000

According to the news reported by stuff on December 22, 2008, Lance Atkinson of Pelican Waters, Queensland, Australia, has been sentenced with the order to pay $100,000 and expenses of $7,666 in Christchurch High Court after pleading guilty to charges under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages (UEM) Act, 2007.

The reports state that Lance Atkinson, the spammer, sought to settle the matter shortly after the Department of Internal Affairs declared prosecution against him during October 2008. Two others accused namely Shane Atkinson, Lance's brother, and messenger Roland Smits of New Zealand's Christchurch are also seeking the settlement and therefore have filed their own statements in favor of defense, according to the reports received so far.

The reports also state that Lance Atkinson allegedly operated a botnet consisting of 35,000 PCs that could potentially send 10 Billion spam messages on a single day.

Also, Atkinson is yet to face the court's proceedings in the United States that the Federal Trade Commission brought against him for distributing junk e-mails.

Meanwhile, the anti-spam Compliance Unit of Internal Affairs, which probed the three defendants, said they belonged to a network that sent over 2 Million unsolicited messages to computers located in New Zealand during September 5-December 31, 2007, as reported by stuff on December 22, 2008.

These unsolicited messages promoted Elite Herbal, Express Herbal and Herbal King branded medications that Tulip Lab of India manufactured and delivered via a business named Genbucks Affiliate Program.

Moreover, Christine French, a member of the jury, while declaring her judgment, she stated that nowhere in the internet history of New Zealand, there was such a massive spamming operation. The impact of operation on New Zealand was proportionately very large, as reported by scoop on December 22, 2008.

Although Lance Atkinson was actually liable to pay $200,000, he received a concession because he co-operated with the authorities and moreover, the operation started before spamming was made illegal, according to Justice French.

Also, Joe Stewart, Manager of Internal Affairs' anti-spam Compliance Unit, while praising the decision, he stated that as spam leaves a significantly adverse impact, it was good to know that at least one spammer was eliminated from internet, as reported by sccop on December 22, 2008.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 12/27/2008

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