8 Ad Networks Sued in CA

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Jon

Jon

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Well, I caught wind of this a few days ago, but haven't reported on it until now because I just wanted to get verification first and make sure we didn't report on anything false.

Here's the news..

At AD:TECH SF last week, 8 ad networks were served with a small claims court suit of between $7500-$10k each on account for email spam. The suit is specifically for "violation of the California anti-spam laws". The person behind this is an actual lawyer too, which makes it seem fishy. More on that soon though.

The following networks were served:

Offerweb
AzoogleAds
Intermark/Copeac
ClickBooth/IntegraClick
AdDrive
The Useful
Admercial
Rextopia

The papers they were served with carries the following information:

The court date is set in California on June 18th 2007 at 1pm. Case #207-SCo4387 in Superior Court of California at the Santa Clara - Palo Alto Courthouse - 270 Grant Ave Palo Alto CA 94306.

Now here is where it gets interesting...

The person behind the suits name is James Wagner, who is a lawyer and apparently makes his living off of things like this. Meaning, the companies at fault here are probably not really at fault, it's just Mr. Wagner's way of making some quick cash by serving companies he knows of outside of the state who will not show up to court and just pay the amount set to make it go away. Personally, I think they should all show up, fight it, and then counter-sue this scumbag for trying to rip them off, but then again, he did make the amount small enough so that it would end up costing more than what he's asking for. The whole thing is fucked up if you ask me, and I feel bad for the companies being named in the suit. I don't think any of them are at fault, and I think someone should take this Wagner guy out and sue him for being a creep (although I don't think there's a law against that yet).

My best wishes and support for the companies named, and I hope that if any of them do choose to fight it, you have me on your side for sure. There's a big difference between doing something wrong, and being scammed to make it look like you did something wrong, and I just cannot stand for that.

I'll report back with anymore news on the topic. Meanwhile if Mr Wagner ever sees this post, hopefully he'll understand my frustration with people like him who make their living off of doing scammy things like this.

Kind of funny though.. I think this is the first email lawsuit brought up in years that didn't have Scott Richter tied to it! Just goes to show you, that Mr Wagner obviously doesn't have much backing to really take this to court and do damage and is just seeking a quick pay day from it, because Scott would definitely rip him a new asshole.
 


I've dealt with this guy before at a company I used to work for. He sued the company I worked for directly for violations of the CAN-SPAM act. My personal experience with him totally lead me to believe that he is in it for the money and nothing more. Its extortion at its worst. And I didn't work for some no name tiny affiliate company either. I worked for a large .com that I don't want to mention cause the issue has since been closed and I don't work for them anymore so I don't want to get a letter from their lawyers now for bringing it up again, or from Mr. Wagner. This guy is totally scum and I wish that there was a way to stop him from making money by extorting legitimate businesses.

Also so people can see his site it is Hypertouch&#174 Inc. -- Internet Services and Haptic Peripherals and Additional Hypertouch&#174 Legal Notices he used to have a page with email addresses on it that he created for the sole purpose of catching people that were harvesting email addresses, then when an offer would be sent to one of those email addresses he would go after not the affiliate but the company who's offer the affiliate was pushing.

I'm willing to discuss it a bit more if anyone is really curious about the details. Feel free to PM me.
 
sicmayhem said:
I've dealt with this guy before at a company I used to work for. He sued the company I worked for directly for violations of the CAN-SPAM act. My personal experience with him totally lead me to believe that he is in it for the money and nothing more. Its extortion at its worst. And I didn't work for some no name tiny affiliate company either. I worked for a large .com that I don't want to mention cause the issue has since been closed and I don't work for them anymore so I don't want to get a letter from their lawyers now for bringing it up again, or from Mr. Wagner. This guy is totally scum and I wish that there was a way to stop him from making money by extorting legitimate businesses.

Also so people can see his site it is Hypertouch&#174 Inc. -- Internet Services and Haptic Peripherals and Additional Hypertouch&#174 Legal Notices he used to have a page with email addresses on it that he created for the sole purpose of catching people that were harvesting email addresses, then when an offer would be sent to one of those email addresses he would go after not the affiliate but the company who's offer the affiliate was pushing.

I'm willing to discuss it a bit more if anyone is really curious about the details. Feel free to PM me.
Click to expand...

You'd think a guy making his cash from suing people and getting them to settle quickly would give him enough cash to update his website so it doesn't look like it was made in 1995. Can't someone sue him for having an ugly site?!?!
 
This guy needs the spam.........some people just deserve it......maybe it sounds like a project for my class....which student can send the most emails to this guy in a 2 hour class. Maybe a lesson for my students on mass emailing programs?
 
Sounds a lot like that gimp in California who goes around sueing small businesses because they aren't handicap accessible, or are in violation of some minor law (sometimes conflicting and uncompliable.)
 
There is another unreputable person like this who who owns Beyond Systems. He sets up traps to catch mail and thus lives off of the perils of the CAN SPAM act. If you come across a company of the name of Beyond Systems watch out they are low lifves trying to make a quick buck. If you ask me they all should be incarcerated for bogging up the legal system with frivolous suits
 
The following networks were served:

Offerweb
AzoogleAds
Intermark/Copeac
ClickBooth/IntegraClick
AdDrive
The Useful
Admercial
Rextopia

PS I know all of these companies and they are all reputable
 
Propellorhead said:
The following networks were served:

Offerweb
AzoogleAds
Intermark/Copeac
ClickBooth/IntegraClick
AdDrive
The Useful
Admercial
Rextopia

PS I know all of these companies and they are all reputable
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No one is saying that they aren't reputable.. I think it's pretty obvious that we are all on the same page here for once in agreeing that the slimy person here is the guy suing these networks for a quick payout from them, and purposely set out to lure them into the suit. I just hope one of them ends up fighting him in court so it can drain his resources and damage him, then when it's over, counter-sue his ass and take him down for good.
 
I'm not sure if its fair to call this frivilous. Exploiting the legal system, yes, but thats business. You should be accountable for every fucking e-mail you send. These networks just pass the bill onto the affiliates who are mailing addresses scraped off the web.
 
The person behind the suits name is James Wagner, who is a lawyer and apparently makes his living off of things like this.
Click to expand...

Your implication is that there are Lawyers that don't make money ooff of such things.

How old are you?
 
Sucks to be them...

They're fucked. This guy has a long history of shaking down companies over email: hypertouch - Google Search

He was the first "ISP" to sue under CAN-SPAM - sued Bobvilla.com over a newsletter send. The only reason he gets away with it is b/c some companies would rather pay him to go away then fight and weather the bad press. Kennedy Western bought him off when he sued them a year ago.
 
Damn you would think that a judge would see that he has a history of doing this shit.
 
sounds like that guy in UT two years ago who sued 100 companies for $6,500 each, and about 60 of them settled just to shut him up.

I think a UT judge finally stopped him because they were frivolous, but he got his money, almost $400k worth.
 
Andrew said:
I'm not sure if its fair to call this frivilous. Exploiting the legal system, yes, but thats business. You should be accountable for every fucking e-mail you send. These networks just pass the bill onto the affiliates who are mailing addresses scraped off the web.
Click to expand...

Hi folks,

I’m the guy who filed those two suits. I thought I would leave a comment. I am not an attorney, I am a graduate student in Mechanical Engineering working on Assistive Robotics for people with high-level spinal cord injuries. I am also the president of Hypertouch, Inc.

All of these ad networks were sued because they were advertising using illegal UCE, specifically spam with false ‘From:’ lines were sent under multiple domain names by a spammer with a penchant for registering hundreds of throw-away domain names, using fake names and addresses to conceal their identity. As an example, one domain was registered using the false name and address located in Los Angeles. I called up the business that is actually located at that address, which happens to be a restaurant. While I have not eaten there, they were very helpful on the phone, and they confirmed that the registration is fraudulent – they do not own the domain, they do not send out email advertisements, and they have never heard of the person. The US Postal Service’s website verifies the fraudulent nature of the dozens of addresses made up from all over the U.S. that were used to register this spammer’s domains. The spammer sends from a large pool of different IP addresses even though it violates the hosting ISP(s)’s AUP that explicitly forbid their activities.

Jon said:
My best wishes and support for the companies named, and I hope that if any of them do choose to fight it, you have me on your side for sure. There's a big difference between doing something wrong, and being scammed to make it look like you did something wrong, and I just cannot stand for that.
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The thing is, _none_ of the companies deny that this is spam sent by one of their affiliates. So I am not sure what exactly you are talking about when you write of "being scammed." If you use spammers that send illegal email, you'll likely make money but the law will hold you as well as the spammers who hit the send key accountable. Legitimate businesses don't use 800+ falsely registered domain names rotating through a different one every couple of days. eFax sends me advertisements for any number of different businesses, but it's always From: efax.com...

As for setting up filters to deal with this spammer, we already have advanced spam filters to try to deal with the flood of spam and this spammers email still gets through. You propose that one could manually setup a new rule for each email when it comes in — In the past six months they’ve used over 800 different throw-away domain names from over 800 different IP addresses using image based spam of random-hashed URLs. Everyone’s legitimate email, including legitimate email advertisements is hurt by this flood of illegal spam. Spam interrupts online communities and prevents new lines of communication from forming.

To this day, it has been impossible to identify the spammer who actually hit the “send” key. Uniformly, Ad networks that hire bad spammers refuse to identify them. When Congress legalized spam, it did so with a bargain to the country — spam was legalized but with the mandatory requirement of transparency and accountability. If one can’t identify the sender of a Commercial Email (solicited or not), it’s illegal, both under CAN-SPAM and California law. There is no legitimate reason to conceal the identity of the people who are hitting the send key for one’s emails. However, as I’ve been told by more than one an ad network this particular spammer brings in a lot of business. California law and the Federal CAN-SPAM Act hold the ad networks responsible for their spam, even if we can’t track down the actual person who hit send.

I have offered each of the current Defendants the option of settling via a donation to tax-deductible charity for relief efforts in Darfur with NO money to go to myself. In past years I’ve raise upwards of $70,000 for charity through donations of judgments, settlements, and/or directed donation by defendants.

I am passionate about fighting illegal UCE. The email address to which these spam were sent is my default university address, used by my University for communication with its students, faculty and staff. It is not an address I give out to anyone for any other use; this indicates that the spammer likely has an illicitly generated list of as many as 20,000+ addresses of the University community. A number of people at this University have filed dozens of cases for illegal spam in this small claims court over the past few years. We have prevailed in every case. Almost always, after actually appearing and losing in an court room in front of a judge, the defendants decide to clean up their act and put their ship in order.

While I am less optimistic about a change in behavior from a couple Defendants, AdDrive (SubscriberBase) and The Useful, which run those “‘Get a free laptop/ipod/plasmascreen” type promotions we all get spam for, I try to be hopeful for them as well and time will tell.

Joe
 
Personally, I am on Joe’s side after reading his post.

Next up...
Someone please sue Kanoogle, 7search, goclick, and all the other bastards the defraud PPC advertises every day.
 
Jon said:
Kind of funny though.. I think this is the first email lawsuit brought up in years that didn't have Scott Richter tied to it! Just goes to show you, that Mr Wagner obviously doesn't have much backing to really take this to court and do damage and is just seeking a quick pay day from it, because Scott would definitely rip him a new asshole.
Click to expand...

Kind of funny you should say that. Actually, OptInRealBig was served at Ad:Tech along with ValueClick for spam with From lines claiming to be from a number of major retail stores. ValueClick had been sued by in the past by Wal-Mart for having Wal-Mart branded promotions...

I am not the Plaintiff in that one, another grad student is. So far the judge has denied two motions to dismiss filed by the Defendants.
 
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