The “King of Spam” Arrested!
Robert Alan Soloway, a Washington state resident, who is known as the “King of Spam” was one of the world’s most prolific spammers and is now behind bars. Federal Authorities say that his arrest could lead to a drop in spam email throughout the world. Soloway is accused of using compromised computer networks to send out millions and millions of spam emails. The Federal Court charged him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering and Soloway has plead not guilty to those charges. The government has seized his four bank accounts but even still he is still paying for his own lawyer. Soloway was said to have been living in a fancy apartment and drove a expensive Mercedes convertible. He has been sending out spam email since 2003 and continued doing so after Microsoft won a $7 million civil judgment against him in 2005 and a small Internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment against him. Soloway’s activities came into light after several complaints were received against Soloway who is listed on the list kept by The Spamhaus Project which is an international anti-spam organization. The Santa Barbara County Department of Social Services said it was spending close to $4000 a month to protect against spam along with several other businesses that claimed a loss of reputation due to the false appearance that the spam originating from their businesses. Robert Soloway would prey on naive business owners who would buy into his marketing campaign thinking that they were hiring an ethical marketing company. His company, Newport Internet Marketing Corporation, would also promote websites that they themselves controlled. Clicking on the link inside one of these spam emails would create a redirection to Soloways website where he claimed he could send out 20 million advertisements over the period of 15 days for $495. It seems like good news to the majority of us who don’t like spam in our emails. I have a pretty strong spam filter through which only 3-4 emails get through daily which isn’t much of a hassle. Its good to see progression in terms of spam reduction from the source of the spam itself. I think this is one step in the right direction but thinking about it again, he was one of the top 10 spammers meaning that there are 9 others out there that are just as bad or worse in the way they conduct their spamming operation. His arrest will mean slightly less spam for everyone around the world, which is music to my ears! Below is a link to the SpamHaus Project Page with Robert Solloway’s details.
The Spamhaus Project Robert Soloway Page
