Cost of fighting the good fight
A lawyer who set himself up as an ISP so he could sue
spammers has lost his possessions when a court battle went wrong.
When CAN SPAM was passed it said that only the government
or ISPs could bring lawsuits and not individuals. The big idea was that “legit” marketing companies were
worried that they would be sued by the great unwashed.
Anti-spammers got around this problem by setting
themselves up as "ISPs," though only for the purpose of trying to sue
spammers. However it looks like the scheme backfired when one of
the most supporters of using this trick James Gordon lost his case, and was
told to pay $110k to the firm he had sued Virtumundo. Not surprisingly he appealed but it seems that the
appeals court came down even harder on him for abusing the law.
They said that he was clearly a professional litigant,
and not someone running a real ISP. As a result the “marketing company” he sued sent the debt
to a collections agency and told Gordon they'd call off the collections agency
if he dropped the appeal. When he didn't they showed up to his house with a
moving van to threaten him a bit more.
Virtumundo's collections agency then cleared out Gordon's
house but still offered to bring it all back if he dropped his appeal. He
didn't and has now lost the lot.