Some legal good news on another front

Anti-spam activist Robert Braver has made progress in his lawsuit against the Ameriquest mortgage company which uses spam to advertise. The lawsuit includes the spammers hired by Ameriquest and the various intermediaries. One of the defendants, Stecroft Holdings (formerly Go Apply, Inc.) d/b/a eLeadz, filed to have the suit dismissed on various grounds.

The judge in the case has ruled against the defendants (scanned pdf, 9 page) on their bid to dismiss. In a nutshell, it seems that the spammers had argued that Braver had not met the requirements to sue for fraud while the judge says that Braver has met the requirements to sue under CAN-SPAM and Oklahoma's Fraudulent Use of Electronic Mail laws, which have different standards. The spammers also argued that Braver had forgotten to dot his 'i's and cross his 't's sufficiently and that the suit should be dismissed on a technicality, but the judge was having none of that. Finally, Stecroft argued that the Oklahoma law did not apply to someone who paid someone else to do their spamming for them.

You can read the full history of the case, which has been ongoing for over two years, at http://www.mortgagespam.com/