Spammer Sues Spam Victim, Continues Spamming Him

Imagine asking a corporation to stop spamming you and instead of honoring your request, it sues you in federal court and continues to send the same unwanted, junk email you asked it to stop sending in the first place. This is precisely what happened to Mark W. Mumma, a web hosting and email service provider in Oklahoma City. A suit was filed against Mumma in the U.S. District Court's Eastern District of Virginia on Feb. 8 by suspected spammer cruise.com, its parent company and the parent's principals.

Mumma's attorney, Richard Toikka of Arlington, VA based Metropolitan Legal Services, LLC., filed a motion March 15, to dismiss Case #05-CV-122. The filing was accompanied by a Motion for Sanctions against John Lawless, opposing party's counsel and General Counsel of Omega World Travel, Inc.

"The motion to dismiss is due to the blatant lack of personal jurisdiction the US Court's Eastern District of VA has over my company or me personally," Mumma said. "I asked this company to quit sending me spam. Instead of honoring my request, it continued to send me spam. Even after filing suit against me in an apparent attempt to cost me money and discourage me from pursuing rightful damages under Oklahoma's spam laws, it continued to send me spam.

"The most shocking thing about spam today is how many big and well-known companies are using spam, but after they've been caught red-handed, you'd think most of these spam offenders would apologize, quit spamming and make every effort possible to settle out of court."

According to Mumma, Cruise.com has never once asked him to do anything. It didn't ask him to remove any of the images or textual content from any of his site(s). "It simply filed a lawsuit in a court that it knew had no jurisdictional authority what-so-ever," Mumma explained. "Today's spammer tends to think it will escape prosecution because they've never been prosecuted. It has a false sense of security because nobody has come along and legally knocked it off its high horse."

Mumma provided Omega World Travel with a valid, lawful opt out request as provided for by §5[a(3)(A)(i) of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 on Jan. 19. It had 10 days to stop sending email offers and allegedly didn't honor the opt-out request. Cruise.com admits sending the email in question in its Complaint filed in Federal Court.

"It makes you wonder," mused Mumma, "Wouldn't it have been easier just to stop spamming?"

For more information on the site and lawsuits against spammers contact Mark W. Mumma, MummaGraphics, Inc. in Oklahoma City at 405.949.2999 or by visiting the web site www.SUEDbySPAMMERS.com and clicking the contact link. A PayPal defense fund has been established to assist Mumma in his defense against the lawsuit filed in federal court. Complete details are available at http://www.SUEDbySPAMMERS.com.

SUEaSpammer.com and SUEDbySPAMMERS.com are trademarks of MummaGraphics, Inc. Cruise.com is a registered trademark of Omega World Travel, Inc.

MummaGraphics, Inc., founded in 1993, is a provider of Internet web hosting and web site design services and has begun directing its energies to curbing unwanted junk email, a/k/a. spam. MummaGraphics began suing spammers in August 2004 and intends to file several more lawsuits in the future. MummaGraphics, Inc. is currently undefeated in court.