The fifth largest Spam ring in the world was sued by the Texas Attorney General on January 13, 2005 and the next day the same Spam ring was sued by Microsoft. We love this double attack which spans Federal courts in the states of Texas and Washington.

The Two Principal Slime Bags
Ryan Samuel Pitylak is a University of Texas student and resides in Austin, Texas. Mark Stephen Trotter is a businessman and resides in Encinitas, California. The case in Texas seeks millions of dollars in damages and alleges that these Spammers violated federal and Texas laws on Spam as well as Texas trade practices. The Microsoft action could seek $1,000 per Spam Email and alleges that they violated Washington state’s anti-spam and consumer protection laws by misleading consumers. Microsoft helped the Texas Attorney General by providing more than 20,000 emails that were captured in their trap accounts.
For Your Reading Pleasure
According to the lawsuit, the Spam emails contained official-looking subject lines such as “Re: your past due bills” and “Urgent: Household Loan Memorandum: Please Read.” When recipients clicked on links in the emails, they were asked to provide personal information that Pitylak and Trotter sold to other companies for as much as $28 per reference, the lawsuit alleges.
Read what the Spammers attorney (Lin Hughes) has to say
“Ms Hughes said that creative wording has long been an accepted tool employed by people soliciting business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to my regular mailbox and found a letter telling that inside is an urgent message about my car, then it turns out to be someone offering car repair services. Is that misleading? Was anyone harmed by it? I doubt it. I have a trash can for regular mail and a delete key for my email.”
Is that so. NOT! We suggest that attorney Hughes spend the next few weeks actually reading each state’s anti-Spam laws as well as the Federal CAN-SPAM Act. At a minimum those email subjects are misleading and our sense and hope is that you have already lost the cases.
Congrats to Texas and Microsoft
We believe this is the first incidence of two separate federal proceedings which span two different states. Both the Texas Attorney General and Microsoft should be congratulated. These dual track actions force the slim bags to defend themselves across two states which cost them significantly more money and time, regardless of the final outcome. It also forces the Spammers to defend themselves against different State laws as well as the Federal CAN-SPAM Act. We hope that this new tactic is deployed by other States who can work with Microsoft along with other major ISPs like AOL. Even AOL and Earthlink could work together and file legal actions in two different states.

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