• by Bill McCloskey , January 9, 2007

An interesting article fell on my desk this morning: a piece in the current Time magazine called "A Spammer's Revenge," with a subhead that reads, "His right to free speech trumps your right to privacy." The article describes the background of a $3.8 million lawsuit that a company called Omega World Travel brought against Mark Mumma, an "Internet services provider and antispam crusader."

Apparently Mumma received an e-mail from an outfit called Cruise.com, a subsidiary of Omega, offering a cruise vacation. Obviously he needed a cruise and a little downtime, because instead of just directing the e-mail to the spam file, he contacted Omega's attorney and threatened a lawsuit unless the company stopped sending e-mail to him or any of the addresses listed on an anti-spam Web site he runs for people who don't want to be spammed.

Omega promised to stop sending the e-mails, but the next day, Mumma received another e-mail from Cruise.com. This prompted him to threaten to sue for $150,000 unless Omega agreed to fork over $6,250. Of course, as an Internet service provider, Mumma should have realized that it can take a few days to pull his name from lists--especially if Cruise was using an affiliate network--let alone purge the names on his anti-spam site.

Before his name was pulled, Mumma received 9 more e-mails, sending him over the edge. Mumma posted the names and photos of Omega's founders, saying they were "Cruise.com spammers." Omega sued for defamation and Mumma countersued under the antispam laws. Mumma's lawsuit was tossed as it should have been, and he now faces a $3 million dollar judgment. Man, he should have just taken the cruise and calmed down.

The attitude of the article is that Mumma was in the right and Omega was in the wrong. This is a typical reaction from the mainstream media to any form of e-mail controversy. But if we take a closer look, we see that the company made no attempt to hide its identity (although Mumma claimed that the header information was deceptive, a distinction that was tossed out in court), and while Mumma claimed he never requested the e-mail, it could have been sent by an affiliate he signed up for at some time in the past without realizing he was opting in to receive messages from their partners.

But most telling is the fact that, while Omega's attorneys agreed to take Mumma's name off the list, they are allowed 10 days to do so. Remember, they also had to remove all the names off his own personal "Do Not E-mail" list. And while the article doesn't go into how much time it took to remove his name, a one-day turnaround is not a reasonable period to expect Omega to comply. Mumma's arbitrarily chosen "settlement" amount of 6 grand plus his Web posting hint at other motives besides getting his name off a list.

The point is that anti-spam vigilantes need to realize that the Wild West is over and there are consequences for their overreactions. And EVERYONE needs to chill out and go on a cruise.