Sue a spammer

By Mark Frauenfelder
"Living Online" section - Playboy, November 2002

By day, Ben Livingston is research director at Infoworld, a popular business technology magazine. By night, he sues telemarketers, junk faxers and spammers. Best of all, he wins, and he doesn't have to use a lawyer. Livingston has collected thousands of dollars by filing suit against all manner of soliciting sleazeballs in small-claims court. Usually, the spammers settle before going to trial, thanks to Livingston's well-worded letters. The ones who ignore his lawsuits end up ruining their credit records. On his site, smallclaim.info, Livingston explains how he does it. He also provides a list of the different junk solicitation laws in each state (California and Washington have especially strong antispam laws). It's not simple to file a suit in small-claims court. You have to fill out forms and serve the papers to the defendant, both of which cost time and money. But if people can learn from Ben Livingston, e-mail inboxes will be a better place.