• IT Week, Monday, January 9, 2006 10:15 AM

An Iowa judge has thrown the book--hard--at a Florida spammer, awarding the owner of an Iowa-based CIS Internet Services, an Internet Service Provider, $11.2 billion in damages after he received millions of unsolicited messages advertising mortgage and debt consolidation services. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit filed in 2003 by company owner Robert Kramer III against James McCalla of Florida. McCalla was accused of sending more than 280 million illegal e-mails into the CIS network, which provides Internet services to eastern Iowa and parts of Illinois. Kramer claimed that he is entitled to $10 per illegal e-mail under Iowa state law. As part of the ruling, McCalla has been barred from accessing the Internet for three years.

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