OFFTOPIC: Re: Hebrew spam: what to do about it?

[Nadav Har'El]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009, Shachar Shemesh wrote about "Re: OFFTOPIC: Re: Hebrew spam: what to do about it?":
> Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
> >
> >Well, I find that hard to believe. You will eventually have to prove
> >that you received the SPAM from them. and that you did not alter it in
> >any way.
>...
> In any case, it should be fairly easy to prove. Just call the number and 
> appear to be an interested customer.

I don't think it is so easy to *prove* who sent you the spam.
If you can be assumed not to lie, and that the email you are showing the
court is authentic, and advertising the sued company, it still says nothing
about who sent the ad.

A few years ago, I got to my personal mail a spam from my employer. This
really pissed me off, and I went to discuss this with the CEO. It turns out
that our company had a bunch of resellers selling our products, and (at
least, according to him) one of these resellers decide to be industrious
and "advertise" using spam. What do you do in such a case? What do you
if the spamvertiser just pretends that this is the case when in fact he was
very much aware of what was going on? What do you do if the spamvertiser
claims he himself paid somebody for "advertising", but didn't know that
other person would spam? What do you do if the spamvertiser claims he has
nothing to do with the spam, but rather his competitor sent out this spam
to tarnish his reputation and entangle him in lawsuites?

Frankly I don't see at all how this would be easy to prove, without any
ISPs or law enforcement agencies to be involved. I personally don't think
this "civil law" (as opposed to criminal law) approach to spam would work,
especially when the sums involved are around 1000 shekels.
But I'll be happy to be proved wrong. Has anybody every heard of anyone
actually winning a court case like this?



-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |      Monday, Feb  9 2009, 15 Shevat 5769
nyh at math.technion.ac.il             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Vote, n.: A person's right to make a fool
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |of himself and a wreck of his country.