SEL: Largest Email Spammer Arrested

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June 01, 2007

Largest Email Spammer Arrested

And stock in Pfizer and Lilly plummet as their respective sales of Viagra and Cialis are cut in half.

Considered “the worst of the criminal spammers,” Robert Alan Soloway was arrested and indicted for 35 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, identity theft and other charges.

Sadly, I don’t believe this will put a huge dent in the email spam problem for a few reasons:

There are plenty of others to take Soloway’s place. Many of our clients are approached repeatedly by these types of organizations. There’s no shortage of people willing to lie about a list’s double opt-in status.
It takes too long to chase spammers down. This loser was at the top of the list and it’s taken this long for any meaningful action to be taken. In fact, he owed $17 million from a couple of 2003 lawsuits that he didn’t bother to pay.
The FTC only operates in the US. How many spam emails to you receive in Asian dialects? I don't understand them, but my guess is that they are Chinese proverbs that when translated mean something like, “I’m going to spam you until your server crashes. By the way, could I interest you in a low-interest mortgage?”

One spammer down, several to go.

Jeremy | permalink | +marktd |

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