Techdirt notes that infamous spammer Alan Ralsky is rumored to have been busted and is now behind bars. Furthermore, the talk is he may sing, meaning more arrests could follow.

The chatter is running on this thread at news.admin.net-abuse.email (via Google Groups), as is the skepticism.

It is known that Ralsky was knocked off his spam king perch months ago (after a previous FBI raid), nevertheless, a DOJ press release would help a lot right now.

Skepticism abounded. Maybe for good reason. InfoWorld says Ralsky may not have been arrested afterall.

Diet patch seller Phoenix Avatar settled charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it violated CAN-SPAM and the FTC Act. The consequences, however, would lead any spammer to believe that CAN-SPAM violations are a bit of a joke.

Phoenix Avatar generated nearly $100,000 a month from product sales, according to the FTC’s original complaint. But the settlement has resulted in a $230,000 suspended sentence, supposedly the amount equal to what they sold in “diet patches.” I doubt the company was able to rack up the million plus complaints they were purported to have generated, in two and a third months, before someone caught up with them and put an immediate clamp on the matter.

In addition (and this is the whopper), the company HAS BEEN BARRED FROM VIOLATING CAN-SPAM! Whoopee! Barred from violating a federal law. Does that mean that any spammer that hasn’t been caught is free to violate CAN-SPAM? What kind of message does this sentence send?

Not a strong one, if you ask me.

See Diet Patch Sellers Settle Can-Spam Charges, straight from the FTC.

I don’t think that this one has a leg to stand on, but I picked it up via Spam Kings: Spam Kings Blog: Cruisin’ for a legal bruisin’. It seems Mark Mumma - I take it he is some type of sys admin/small ISP/something else I can’t quite figure out - has made a little side career out of suing spammers. Now they have bit back.

I have a few questions/points about this…..

Now I may be way off base here, but I actually see some problems with this scenario:

If Mark has made a little side business out of this, is he seeding lists in order to get spammed, in order to sue, in order to settle, in order to pay the mortgage? Its the tendency to attempt settlement that makes me suspicious here. If so, that is going to catch up with him, unless it already has.

They are now in a different court than usual, and Mark’s lawyer is screaming jurisdiction? I think there is more to that than meets the eye. Is the spammer or target company working or based out of there? Either way, they must think they have a strong case. If so, I think Mark is in deeper than he may like to be. Virginia is tough on spammers, really tough. Any spammer (or partner) who has the guts to sue in that state has something up their sleeve.

Whatever the issues here, which we will likely find out, and soon, we can be pretty sure this little game has backfired on Mark. I doubt he will be pulling this trick again, and I suspect he is now going to get a lot more spam (due to the publicity).

Lesson: If you want to make a game of suing folks for a living, make sure you have deep pockets, because you won’t win them all.

For more on this story, you can check out Spammer Sues Spam Victim, Continues Spamming Him.

Tony Blair is a spammer. Everyone else has already covered this story, so I won’t say much more. Politicians are worthy of very little of my CPU’s time. Here you go: Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Prime Minister Accused of Sending Out Spam.