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This domain is for sale now As a direct result of spam and the recent rulings where IAS/ISPs are not allowed to sue spammers to get them to stop. (see Gordon v. Vurtumundo and Ferguson v. Active Response Group) Like Gordon I mitigated my damages as a result of being put out of business once in California. I outsource my email by using one of my providers to filter all incoming email. This is something that is included with my primary account. Since I am paying once for the first upstream provider to deal with spam and because I was required to obtain a second provider on top of the first provider to deal with the incoming spam I feel I have been damaged by the spam. The judge in Ferguson v. Active Response Group did in fact agree that I was an IAS/ISP and did in fact have ISP like damages but apparently since I have been able to absorb and mitigate the damages I have not been damaged enough for the judge to even tell the spammers to stop spamming me and my clients. In fact Barber, opposing counsel actually lied on a couple of occasions to the Court in his declarations to the court [wow, an officer of the court lying to the judge] and the judge actually agreed that I should be forced to upgrade my services because, "they would be faster". I can no longer financially absorb 25,000 - 35,000 spam each year and conduct business. I have multiple MTA filters in use, I have Spam Assassin set to a single point. But because of the tactics of using thousands of domains as hash busters it is a game of catch-up. I can't add the domain until I get spam from it and neither can any of the outside filter services I use. The judge went even further and pre-empted the Washington law which effectively removes all Washington state citizens from being able to do anything about the spam being forced on them and the two ruling combined effectively limit severely any ISP even an ISP as large as MicroSoft from suing spammers. MicroSoft has so far refused to file under CAN SPAM. As a direct result of these asinine rulings whew.com and other domains I own are going to be sold and I am shutting my doors. I am no longer able to absorb the losses do to spam. In the last ten years I can estimate a loss and out of pocket expense of approximately one-hundred thousand dollars and a loss of potential income of approximately at least five-hundred thousand dollars conservatively. A typical spam that I received and the Judge declared to be legal by his ruling is located here with the registration information and all the redirects back to the domain of the company that hired the spammer to send the spam. It should also be noted that the spammers located at 222 Church Street, Port Chester, NY registered their domains using Purity Parcel Inc. This company does not exist in any state that I could find and so they violated CAN SPAM Act of 2003 and the Judge made the excuse for the sender that it could have been a typo. They typo'ed on all the domain registrations and in all 400 plus spam they sent me. The Judge in Ferguson v. Active Response Group excused the use of fraudulent addresses by stating that "It could have been a typo". This was done without any prompting or input from the Quinstreet. With this type of blatant bias in the favor of the spammer, and then without a single Judge defining "adverse", and the two federal judges not wanting these "types of cases in their courts" there is no way that a company can stop the spam. The spammer's attorney Steve Barber of RMK in California continues to lie to the court and the court does nothing. Steve Barber states that I am a "Professional anti-spam litigant". Steve Barber has to lie to defend his client and since the court is not holding his feet to the fire they are using his lies so they don't have to hear the case. The fact is that I was the principal in a class action in California. I expected nothing, no compensation when I started the case which is how it works. At the conclusion of the case the attorneys awarded me a nominal fee for the trouble and time of four years of effort. The nominal fee was so little it was so not worth the Denial of Service attacks and other expenses for the case. So what Steve Barber claims is that because I sued a spammer as a Principal in a Class action that I am a Professional Litigant. He has lied to the judge about my deposition about what I said. This was easily shown to be false, yet the judge did nothing. So we are here with the spammers winning on competing summary judgments because the spammer could have typo'ed all the spam he/she sent and I am professional plaintiff for suing one spammer. Conveniently omitted is the fact that we own a couple of houses and we purchased both of them before ever filing suit against any spammers in Washington and that I only sued one spammer prior to suing the spammers in Washington State. Of course I have been sued four times by spammers but I am the professional litigant. I have been damaged by the spammers but not enough to have standing as being adversely affected. So in the end I have a dishonest attorney Steve Barber that lies to defend his client Quinstreet, I have a Judge that thinks these cases are something he doesn't want to hear and I have a business slowly being ruined by so much spam that I am unable to mitigate the damages any further. This is where the American Dream of owning your own business meets the reality of dishonest attorneys representing spammers [big surprise there], getting sued by two "alleged" spammers [three times in Illinois, 2,400 miles from where I do business and reside] and Judges that just don't want to do their job and dies a nightmarish death. Jim Gordon has already experienced this with a Judge that did not want to do his job. If you don't want to do your job then perhaps you might consider stepping down so another that is willing to do the job, will. I am not trying to win a popularity contest with any judge. I simply want to be left alone to do my work and the spam is so much that it is like the neighbor's dog barking incessantly all day, like some sale drone calling you all day, like somebody knocking on your door all day. Do I sound angry? Most successful businesses add into their cost of business theft and spam is theft of bandwidth and resources. So if Gordon purchased the bandwidth he felt he would need to absorb the spam load he would have simply been doing his due diligence. When a company adds into their business model and plan, the cost of theft it does not preclude them from seeking to be compensated for damages from the person that committed the theft. According to the Judge in that case Gordon was not adversely affected, according to the Judge in my case I was not adversely affected because I did my due diligence and my expressed duty under the law to MITIGATE my damages. I am done. The domain will be sold with closed bidding starting at $25,000.00.
The rules
Send your bid to bidding@whew.com with "bid for whew.com" in the subject line. After January 1, 2009 you will deposit the funds in an escrow account and my attorney will handle all exchanges. |