An Australian business seminar marketer became the first to be fined under Australia’s anti-spam law Friday when a federal court ordered it to pay approximately $4.2 million for sending 280 million spam e-mails.
The Federal Court fined Clarity1 Pty Ltd $4.5 million (AU) and its director Wayne Mansfield $1 million (AU) for sending unsolicited e-mail hawking seminars and other products.
The court also banned Clarity1 from sending unsolicited e-mails in the future.
Mansfield is the same man who lost a lawsuit against anti-spammer Joseph John McNicol in 2002 when Mansfield as much as admitted in court papers his company, then T3 Direct, sent spam as part of its business.
Mansfield sued McNicol claiming the anti-spammer wrongfully got T3’s IP addresses blacklisted by posting negative comments about the company online.
The suit became an international rallying point for anti-spammers.
