Federal Trade Commission cans the spam

 

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Posted on 16 Oct 2008 at 10:00

The Federal Trade Commission claims to have shutdown a criminal group responsible for a third of all spam on the internet.

According to court papers issued by the FTC, courts in the US and New Zealand have frozen the assets of New Zealander Lance Atkinson and Jody Smith, currently living in Texas. The two stand accused of bombarding millions of people with emails that offered "male-enhancement pills, prescription drugs, and a weight-loss pill".

The papers claim the two made millions utilising a botnet consisting of more than 35,000 hacked machines to send around 10 billion spam messages everyday. At its height, the four companies controlled by Atkinson and Smith were raking in more than $500,000 a month and recruiting thousands of spammers around the world.

The two are currently under an injunction preventing them from continuing to do business while the case is underway.

This is not the first time Atkinson has found himself under the watchful glare of the FTC. In 2005, the agency issued a $2.2 million judgement against him for running a similar spam program.

This ruling is the latest in a string of cases brought by US authorities, which have aggressively stepped up their campaign against spammers in the past few years.

In recent months MySpace won a massive $234 million payout against notorious spammer Sanford Wallace, though it's doubtful the site will ever be able to collect.

However, it's not gone all the authorities' way. Back in September a nine-year prison sentence handed to convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes was overturned on a technicality, allowing him to walk free without serving a day in prison.

Author: Stuart Turton