[SpamCop-Geeks] Re: legal terminology

[Pete Stephenson]

In article <3C0B23E4.66D6AC87>,
 RW <richard> wrote:

> Of the two, trespass to chattel probably has more merits of argument,
> although it may be tough to prove whether a mail account is a tangible
> asset.

Well, they may also refer to chattel as the physical server upon which 
the email is stored -- disk space, CPU power, perhaps even the bandwidth 
that is wasted by spam -- those are all quite real resources which are 
being consumed.

Personally, what I've been doing is charging and invoicing commercial 
spammers (i.e. SweepsClub.com and SeekerCenter.net) for cleanup and 
processing fees. In these cases, I email them a contract stating 
loosely, "If you want to use my resources to advertise to me, it will 
cost $1,000 per message. If you continue to send such marketing messages 
to me, you indicate your agreement to these terms. If you do not agree, 
do not send such messages. Payment is due within 7 days of your 
acceptance of the contract."

I usually receive another such message shortly (for Sweepsclub, it was 
the next day, for SeekerCenter, it was a week). I send them an email 
notifying them of their acceptance to the terms, then send an invoice (I 
have software to do such things, it's called "Customer Tracker" for the 
Mac). A week later, if they have not paid, I turn it over to collections.

So far, the week is almost done (December 6th) for Sweepsclub, and I've 
already turned my invoice for SeekerCenter over to collections -- 
they've sent one letter already.

I'll keep you all posted as to the results.

-- 
Pete Stephenson
HeyPete.com