In what may be the largest judgment in a suit against spammers so far, a company that offers subscribers an e-mail service in Iowa has been awarded more than a billion dollars by a federal judge; the allegations were that the company’s servers were inundated with as many as 10 million spam e-mails a day. The judgments were obtained under the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) and the Iowa Ongoing Criminal Conduct Act. Iowa law allows damage claims of $10 per spam message and were tripled under RICO. Not particularly surprising, no attorneys for the defendants were present during a bench trial in November and the judgments were entered by default.
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