BRAVO !

Aussie court fines, bans e-mail spammer

BRISBANE, Australia, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A New Zealand man accused of being an e-mail spam mastermind has been fined and banned from e-mailing for seven years, Australian officials say.

Lance Thomas Atkinson, 26, was sentenced Tuesday by the Federal Court in Brisbane to pay a $185,000 fine and $13,000 in court costs for filling the inboxes of Australian Internet users with e-mails prompting them to click through to Web sites using allegedly false claims to sell prescription drugs, "male enhancement" products and weight-loss pills, The Brisbane Times reported.

The newspaper said Atkinson has already been fined $14 million by U.S. authorities for sending millions of spam e-mails in what they called the world's biggest such operation. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission found Atkinson and his U.S. accomplice allegedly controlled a "botnet" of 35,000 computers, capable of sending 10 billion e-mail messages a day.

Prosecutors told the Brisbane court that Atkinson and 45 commissioned workers sent spam to Australian internet users on 61 days during a 14-month period between October 2006 and December 2007, the Times reported.