SMS spammers fined almost RM50 million (A$ 15.75 mil)

In the first court action taken by Australian Communication and Media Authority against unsolicited SMS messages, 2 companies and 3 individuals were fined with a total of A$15.75mil (RM49.14mil) for contravening the Spam Act.

Published: Saturday October 24, 2009 (TheStar.com)

Spammers fined massive RM49.14mil

MELBOURNE: Two companies and three individuals have been hit with penalties totalling A$15.75mil (RM49.14mil) for contravening the Spam Act, the first court action taken against unsolicited SMS messages.

The fines were handed down in the Federal Court in Brisbane on Friday.

Mobilegate Ltd and Winning Bid Pty Ltd were found to have contravened the Spam Act and the Trade Practices Act 1974 in August 2009, the Australian Associated Press reports.

Three individuals former Winning Bid director Simon Anthony Owen, current Mobilegate director Tarek Andreas Salcedo and Winning Bid employee Glenn Christopher Maughan were also found responsible for the breaches.

The case was the first court action taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) against unsolicited SMS messages.

ACMA acting chairman Chris Cheah said it was a significant outcome for all mobile phone users.

"The maximum penalties provided for under the Spam Act are very high," he said.

"The substantial penalties imposed by the court in this case show that spam will not be tolerated in Australia." - Bernama

Other posts related to online scams, cheatings and legal issues are:

• Online beauty product fraud
  
• Another spammer gets jailed
  
• Another SMS scam
  
• New SMS scam
  
• 2 more Internet scam sites blocked by SC
  
• Crackdown on Internet scam in Malaysia - 6 sites blocked
• Spam king arrested!
• Spam - Firm ordered to pay £750
• Internet Banking scam in Malaysia: 13 youth nabbed

Another SMS scam

After the recent SMS scam attack on Digi subscribers, now is the turn for Maxis subscribers to experience the similar SMS scam.

Subscribers will be informed through SMSes that they had won some cash worth a few thousands from Maxis. In order to withdraw the money, they were required to call a foreign 15 digits phone number to provide then with the bank account number.

A Maxis spokeperson beside denying their involvement, also reminded the subscribers to ignore SMSes with foreign or weird codes.

Source: TheStar, 14th July 2007.

Personal Opinion:
Seems like the SMS scams is getting bolder and innovative. A lot of new tricks are being implemented to trick the subcribers to disclose some crucial financial and personal information. How could the government and telcos help to stop this scam from spreading on? May be they can consider the actions taken by SC in closing down the illegal fund investment websites - blocking all the weird or foreign codes? The government also should control the licenses for mobile services operators which are related to SMS.

New SMS scam

"Tahniah, simcard anda memenangi hadiah cek tunai RM15,000 plus reload kredit RM250 dari peraduan DiGi. Sila hubungi 006281343842239, terima kasih" (Congratulations, your simcard has won RM15,000 in cash plus reload credit of RM250 from a DiGi contest, please contact 006281343842239, thank you).

Beware, this is a new SMS scam circulating in the market now. According to the Digi officials, the number belonged to an Indonesia mobile phone. Digi also highlighted that these SMS were not sent by them and urged the public not to fall to this prey.

Source: TheStar, 26th June 2007

Beside this, previously there was the Akademia Fantasia SMS scam too. Dear folks, just be careful of these SMS.

Google continue to fight the cybersquatters

Besides the Google Mail's domain names disputes Europe and China, Google is also currently engaging in another battle against Dutch cybersquatters. They are planning to sue Marcel van der Werf, a Dutch cybersquatter on the following domain names - Googledatingsite.nl, Googleonlineshop.com, Googlecommunity.nl and Googlestore.nl.

Is Froggles.com same with Google.com? Google did sued Froggles.com in 2005 for trademark infringement.

Firms use cyber thugs to attack competitors

New phenomena in the online businesses. Just like watching some movies where successful businessman with the background support of the gangsters - now legitimate firms are using cyber thugs or criminals to sabotage their rival websites.

Using DDoS (Distributed Denial of Services), the attacks attempted to knock down the rival websites by sending floods of data. DDoS is where the attackers gain illegal administrative access to as many computers on the Internet as possible and use the multiple computers to send flood of data packets to the target computer with the aim of overloading it.

Some extortion rackets are using this methods especially on online gaming sites.

BBC News reported that the number of extortion-based attacks had declined but the application of cyber criminal by companies to attack their rivals are in the rise - a new phenomena called anti-competitive behaviour.

Talking about fair-play and equal chances in the online business environment? Be careful, some big brothers are watching over you.

Software Piracy 2006 report on Malaysia

These are some statistics from the IIPA's (International Intellectual Property Alliance) 2006 report on piracy.

• Malaysian music piracy is down 4% last year from 49% to 45%.
• At the same time, the business software piracy is up 1% to 61% from 60% the previous year.
• Motion pictures piracy is high at 91%.
• Entertainment software decrease 1% from 91% to 90%.
• Estimated losses from the books piracy is US$9 million (RM31.5 million)

With these results, Malaysia remained in the Watch List (less critical from the Priority Watch List) of the US Trade Representative (USTR) Piracy Watch since 2001. Our country once occupied the list of the Priority Watch List before.

The current Priority Watch List consisted of:

• Asia - India, China & Thailand
• Europe - Russia, Ukraine
• America - Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Venezuela
• Africa - Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey

Seems like we are not too bad as compared to these countries.

IIPA also published a summary of its global initiatives in 2007.

Two positives reports on Malaysian's effort in combating software piracy were also mentioned, namely:

• The closure of 11 CD plants, a commendable efforts to tackle the optical over-production problem (resulting in less supply)
  
• Sustained efforts against retail outlets that sell pirated software like raids on the shopping complexes such as Low Yat, Imbi Plaze and many more (resulting in less marketplaces)
  

IIPA concerns for Malaysia:

• Backlogs of IP (Intellectual Property) cases in court. (An IP Court will be most likely to be established this year in Malaysia by Malaysian Government)
• Clamp down on the export of pirated product from Malaysia (Made in Malaysia pirated software are well distributed worldwide)
• Increase in mobile music piracy (shopping complexes, night market etc)
  
• Emergence of more 'hard goods' websites distributing pirated movies.

Sources:
TheStar, 22 February 2007 (Malaysia to remain on piracy Watch List?)
IIPA website

An ethical issue - should LAWYER Blogging & get customers?

The marketing potential from blogging which may helps to generate income/potential clients to the blogging lawyers may cause some ethical discussion.

• Should lawyer be prohibited from blogging due to the nature of blogging which may contain some elements of marketing?
• Can we stop lawyers from expressing their personal opinion on the blog?

Putting up comments and blog can be translated into advice or advertising. These can be considered as breaching of the professional code of ethics. This is a dilemma faced by lawyers in this new tech-internet environment.

This long article can be obtained here - Blogging Lawyers: The Ethics Debate (www.ecommercetimes.com, 19th Nov 2006)

Selling four pirated DVD online - fined RM8,000.

TheStar online reported that an IT expert was fined RM8,000 under the Copyright Act 1987 for selling four pirated DVDs in the Internet.

I believe this also apply to the selling of photocopied books over the Internet. This is one of the legal issue related to e-commerce.

IT expert fined RM8,000 for offering to sell four pirated DVDs
Friday November 17, 2006

By ANTHONY TAN

PENANG: An IT expert was fined RM8,000 after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court here to three counts of offering to sell four pirated DVDs over the Internet.

Poh Wee Leng, 30, from Petaling Jaya, was fined RM2,000 for each infringing copy while his friend, Huan Su Ling, 25, who was jointly charged with him, was freed after the prosecution withdrew the charges against her. ....

Poh, who is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in Business Administration, admitted on Friday to committing the offences at a house at Solok Tembaga Dua in Island Park here at about 1pm on Oct 12.

He and Huan had claimed trial when they were first charged on Oct 17.

The four titles of the pirated DVDs were Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties, Garfield, The Da Vinci Code and Mean Girl.

The two Garfield titles were stated in the first charge.

The offence under the Copyright Act 1987 carries a fine of RM2,000 to RM20,000 per copy or maximum five years jail or both.

Judge Hadhariah Syed Ismail ordered Poh to serve a total jail term of 18 months if he failed to pay the fine.

Poh, who was represented by R.S.N. Rayer, paid up.

Rooney scored back his domain name

Wayne Rooney may not be scoring on the Saturday match against Wigan but definitely he scored back his domain name - www.waynerooney.com.

• a case of cybersquatting (Lecture 12)
  
• domain name consist of his name was registered by somebody in 2002
• choices available - pay a large sum to get back the domain name or go to the arbitration who will decide on the rightful onwer
• beside Rooney, others soccer stars like Ronaldinho, Totti, Joe Cole and Frank Rijkaard also managed to successfully defended the right to control the use of their names in Web site addresses.

This is report from TheStar (15th Oct 2006)

GENEVA: Manchester United star Wayne Rooney has won the right to a Web site address including his name.

Ownership of the www.waynerooney.com domain name must be handed to the England forward and his management company, a UN intellectual property panel ruled on Friday.

The domain name was registered in 2002 by an actor from Wrexham, England, when Rooney was a 16-year-old player for Everton. Rooney subsequently filed a trademark on his name.

A World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration panel said the present owner had no legitimate interests in using it.

The panel said the owner’s claim that he had registered the domain in order to create a fan site was “a difficult story to swallow.”

The WIPO panel said the current owner acted in “bad faith” when he registered the domain, and that it should be handed over to Rooney within 10 days unless the decision is challenged in a civil court.

The arbitration panel, which was set up in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight a costly legal battle or pay large sums of money.

In July, Brazilian football star Ronaldinho successfully defended the right to control the use of his name in Web site addresses.

Other stars who have recently won rulings against so-called “cybersquatters” include Italian international Francesco Totti, England midfielder Joe Cole and Dutch football manager and former player Frank Rijkaard. – AP

Beware - you may face the same issue if you become famous one day. Better register your own domain name now.

On Microsoft go for war with pirated windows-software

Microsoft has launched an intiative to counter attack pirated operating systems users by having a new patch which will be automatically updated into the computers when it goes online, with the effect of having a permenant label at the windows screen to remind the users that they are using the pirated version of the software.

Pop-ups screen will also be exercised along this initiatives. Users can choose to ingnore the label if they intend to continue using the software. However, it will caused embrassment when their customers see these label on their computer screen.

Another company sued for Internet Privacy

A company in US is currently being sued for selling email addresses.

Source of information: www.cnn.com

Suit alleges Internet privacy breach

Friday, March 24, 2006; Posted: 8:19 a.m. EST (13:19 GMT)
ALBANY, New York (AP) -- New York's attorney general sued an Internet company Thursday over the selling of e-mail addresses in what authorities say may be the biggest deliberate breach of Internet privacy ever.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Gratis Internet of selling personal information obtained from millions of consumers despite a promise of confidentiality.

The consumers thought they were simply registering to see a Web site offering free iPod music players or DVD movies and video games, Spitzer spokesman Brad Maione said. On sign-up pages, Gratis promised it "does not ... sell/rent e-mails."

Instead of confidentiality, Spitzer said, Gratis sold access to their e-mail information to three independent e-mail marketers, and hundreds of millions of e-mail solicitations followed.

In a statement, Gratis said the allegations that it sold e-mail addresses to e-mail marketers, and that these companies purchased personal user information from Gratis, were "completely untrue."

The company said it hired Datran Media of New York City, a leading e-mail marketer, to manage "the logistics of marketing products and services via e-mail to Gratis' own user base." It said Datran or two other hired companies "at no time ever engaged in a sale or purchase of data."

Gratis, based in Washington, D.C., always controlled and owned the users' information and never profited from any sale of data, the company said.

On March 12, Spitzer sued Datran Media, accusing it of using unauthorized personal data "mined" by other firms from about 6 million e-mail addresses nationwide. Datran agreed to reform its practices under a $1.1 million settlement.

"Unless checked now, companies that collect and sell information on consumers will continue to find ways to erode the basic standards that protect privacy in the Internet age," Spitzer said.

Spitzer's "data mining" investigation began last year amid reports of companies compiling and selling marketing lists.

Gratis owns and operates Web sites that offer free merchandise for registering their e-mail addresses. The state fraud lawsuit accuses its owners, Peter Martin and Robert Jewell, of privacy violations in 2004 and 2005.

Spitzer claims Gratis wrongly shared as many as 7 million "user records," creating the largest deliberate breach of a privacy policy discovered by U.S. law enforcement. He said the company's promises to consumers included: "We will never give out, sell or lend your name or information to anyone," and "We will never lend, sell or give out for any reason your e-mail address or personal information."

Software piracy level down by 2% in Malaysia (2004)

While browsing Star In.Tech [May 2005] (page 3), it was noted that the software piracy rate in Malaysia has declined by only 2% from 63% to 61% last year (2004).

According to the same report, the Asia Pacific region has three of the world's top five pirating countries namely Vietnam (92%), China (90%) and Indonesia (87%). "Worldwide, one out of every three copies of software in use has been obtained illegally."

Within the same issue on page 26 features the plights of the original DVDs in China where it is having a tough fight with the pirated version. It was estimated that last year, Chinese consumers brough about one billion home video discs where 95% of them were pirated.


Question: How to fight pirated copies of software where there is abundant of demand and supply which fulfill the basic requirment of economic theory?

Tonight's heavy rain (which causes the pasar malam traders to close their businesses earlier) is one of the solution. No pirated CDs or VCDs for at least a day. However, pirated CDs/VCDs/DVDs stalls are mushrooming near the mamak stall or restaurants.