First Aussie Spammer Nailed
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A Perth Court has found Clarity1 guilty of spam crimes for sending 56 million commercial emails in 12 months.

Last week Justice Nicholson of the Federal Court in Perth found that Clarity1 had contravened the Spam Act 2003 , rejecting the company’s defence that recipients had consented and enshrining the precedent that emails harvested prior to the Spam Act are not protected.

“The fact that address-harvesting may have occurred at a time when no such prohibition was in the law, does not prevent the application of the provision in its term from the date it came into force,’ Justice Nicholson found.

This first prosecution of a spammer by the Australian Communications and Media Authority is a shot across the bow of local spammers indication “that their activities will be vigorously pursued by ACMA,’ said Chris Chapman, ACMA Chairman.

“‘This has been an important test case for the Spam Act,” he said “Justice Nicholson’s findings should give Australians confidence in the effectiveness of this important legislation.

‘The receipt of spam imposes significant cost and inconvenience on individuals and businesses by disrupting email delivery, clogging up computer systems, reducing productivity, wasting time, irritating users and raising the cost of internet access fees.’

“The ACMA is to be congratulated for developing and presenting a thorough case against Wayne Mansfield, and for putting an end to the
huge amounts of spam originating from his company’s servers,” said Rob Forsyth, Regional Managing Director for Sophos Asia Pacific.

Clarity1 and its Managing Director, Wayne Mansfield will discover what penalties will be imposed at a later date.