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U.S. lawsuits seek $2.2 trillion over "junk" faxes
Yahoo News ^ | 8/22/02 | Andrew Quinn

Posted on 08/22/2002 9:03:12 PM PDT by martin_fierro

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A coalition of California activists filed a jaw-dropping $2.2 trillion set of lawsuits against facsimile marketer Fax.com Thursday, saying millions of "junk faxes" are clogging the nation's fax machines, jamming communications and possibly endangering lives.

The suits, filed in both California state and federal court, seek class action status and punitive damages against privately held Fax.com, its telecommunications provider, Cox Business Services, a division of Cox Communications Inc. (NYSE:COX - News), as well as Fax.com's advertisers.

"The right to free speech stops at the entrance to my house. You are not allowed to invade my privacy and to use my resources to send your message," said Steve Kirsch, a long-time Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist who announced the lawsuits on Thursday.

The lawsuits accuse all the named companies of violating federal laws prohibiting "junk" faxes -- unsolicited advertisements or announcements which "broadcast" to millions of personal, corporate and government facsimile machines.

Fax.com, in a statement, rejected the lawsuits as "unfounded and absurd" and said it had the constitutional right to advertise by fax.

But in a decision earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission proposed fining Fax.com $5.38 million for sending unsolicited advertisements by fax, the largest fine ever proposed for such a violation.

Lawyers in the California lawsuits said they would seek a minimum statutory remedy of $500 per fax from every advertiser who used Fax.com to send out unsolicited advertisements over the past four years.

"We believe that there are companies with substantial assets in this group. We will seek treble damages of $1,500 per unsolicited fax from Fax.com and Cox Communications," Kirsch said in a statement.

Fax.com's president, Kevin Katz, said the suit was aimed at intimidating his company's customers -- many of whom are small business owners who rely on faxing as an affordable and effective method of advertising. He also said the suits ignored the public service Fax.com performs by mass faxing missing children alerts.

"I am dismayed by the outrageous charges leveled in the suit," Katz said. "To claim that a single fax endangers lives is bizarre."

Officials at Cox Communications did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.

"WAR DIALING" HITS HOSPITALS

The lawsuits were announced at a news conference at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif., where officials said they had also been bombarded with junk fax advertisements sent by computer "war dialing" programs that can target numerous facsimile machines simultaneously.

"We have between 80 and 100 different fax machines in the hospital. In one fax machine which we monitored for a period of about four months we received over 500 junk faxes," said Mark Zielazinski, the hospital's chief information officer.

In Washington state, the University of Washington Medical Center was almost shut down by a "war dialing" assault mounted by a facsimile broadcaster.

"In the past year, Fax.com made over 1,000 telephone calls at once to the University of Washington Medical Center," center spokesman Walter Neary said, adding that the center had since joined with Washington's state attorney general to file suit against the Fax.com.

Kirsch, who founded Infoseek Corp. before it was acquired by Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - News), and now heads Propel Software Corp., has launched a Web site, www.junkfax.org, to tell people how to get off fax marketers' lists.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Technical; US: California
KEYWORDS: 22trillion; jnkfaxes; lawsuit
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To: Freemeorkillme
I did notice that Kirsch and gang are actually seeking $1500 per fax, $1000 higher than the Cali $500 minimum per fax. That may be a bit over the top.

The junk fax law specifies treble damages when the junk faxer is in willful violation (e.g. he's been told to knock it off but continues).

21 posted on 08/23/2002 6:22:32 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: steve-b; All
There is nothing worse than getting to work in the morning and finding 8-10 junk faxes on the machine...and THEN having a legitimate one come in only to find you machine is out of ink!

22 posted on 08/23/2002 6:28:43 AM PDT by Dasaji
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To: martin_fierro
Fax.com, in a statement, rejected the lawsuits as "unfounded and absurd" and said it had the constitutional right to advertise by fax.

47USC227: It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States... to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine;

Too bad... you lose.

23 posted on 08/23/2002 7:36:27 AM PDT by TechJunkYard
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To: Centurion2000
The law allows $500 per offending fax, plus $1,000 per in punitive if the faxer doesn't cease and desist upon request.

That's $1,500 per fax. 1.5 billion unsolicited faxes may sound like a lot, but these junk fax outfits typically have hundreds of phone lines, and send millions of faxes per day.

24 posted on 08/23/2002 8:25:01 AM PDT by Poohbah
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To: martin_fierro
To claim that a single fax endangers lives is bizarre.

How much trouble could one little tribble cause?

25 posted on 08/23/2002 8:38:34 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: martin_fierro
Hey, I hate junk faxes as much as the next guy. But $2.2 trillion? That's more than even the greedy tobacco lawyers wanted. This is rediculous. The lawyers have no shame.
26 posted on 08/23/2002 9:32:19 AM PDT by monkeyshine
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To: Brookhaven
"The person receiving the advertisement incurs a cost. Paper, connection time, etc..."

And how about the toner? That stuff's expensive!

Someone here on FR had several paragraphs from the US Code that appears to say that these junk faxes are illegal already. I printed it out and would send it back to those who sent the junk faxes. Then someone stole it. If anyone has it, could they please send me a copy? Thanks!

Carolyn

27 posted on 08/23/2002 9:36:42 AM PDT by CDHart
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To: CDHart
47 USC 227 (b)(3)

California Junk Fax Law (weaker, for now): B&P §17538.4

28 posted on 08/23/2002 10:17:18 AM PDT by martin_fierro
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To: monkeyshine
The law specifies a $500 penalty per junk fax ($1500 if the fax was sent in knowing and willful violation of the law). These spammers have sent a lot of junk faxes -- enough to incur $2.2 trillion in liability even at the lower figure (actually, it would make sense to charge them the full $6.6. trillion, simply to establish for the record that they knew perfectly well that they were breaking the law).

Of course, the plaintiff won't actually be able to extract more than the entire assets of the spamhaus company, but that's a different issue.

29 posted on 08/23/2002 11:58:34 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: martin_fierro
Thank you!

Carolyn

30 posted on 08/24/2002 2:48:59 PM PDT by CDHart
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To: martin_fierro
"Junk Faxers occupy the same circle of hell as SPAMers." >

And don't forget the telemarketers too! I wonder if faxes are used much anymore (now in 2014). People tell me to just scan it and put it in an email.

In case you are wondering how I found this thread. . . I put 22 as a keyword on a thread (for .22 caliber), but it just leads to this one :)

31 posted on 05/13/2014 11:47:20 PM PDT by deks (Sent from my BlackBerry Q10)
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