Well-Known Spammer To Pony Up $7 million to Microsoft

from the oh-so-you're-not-broke? dept

We wondered last month if spam king Scott Richter was going legit after anti-spammers said they hadn't seen any spam from him in several months. Now, it looks like he's taken another step towards legitimacy by settling a lawsuit with Microsoft for $7 million, but also agreeing to withdraw the bankruptcy filings he'd made for himself and his company, OptInRealBig -- bankruptcies intended solely to consolidate lawsuits and reorganize the company so it could keep on spamming. In the book Spam Kings, Richter is portrayed as somebody who couldn't decide whether to go legit or to be a spammer. This settlement, along with his removal from the ROKSO (Registry of Known Spam Operations) list, makes it look like he may have finally chosen legitimacy.