...
So yeah, SPAM costs our company alone a minimum of $200 a year just in subscription fees and maintenance. In practice, it's cost a lot more, and has taken us offline.
...
Your story is interesting and it's clearly costing your business money but it still doesn't add up to anywhere near $1000 per email.
Let's say that you have ten people (you stated less than fifteen) and they all recieve 20 spam a day (what you quoted for the CEO). That's roughly 73,000 emails a year.
You listed a one off loss of a $50,000 sale, a one off purchase of a $500 filter and $200 per year maintenance. I'll add in $500 per year per staff member to filter email and general pain. Taking the one offs and assuming they occur every three years we get $55,700 in cost per year.
The magic figure out of all this very rubbery estimation is 76 cents per email. Lets call it a dollar, it's a nice number and nobody will rationally argue that it costs more than $1 (USD) to handle a single piece of spam.
Now let's look at what the legistlation puts him on the hook for and compare it to everyone's favorite boogy man, the copyright infringement minimums.
Cost: Spam = $1, Copyright = $1
Minimum damages: Spam = $1000, Copyright = $750
So there are a few options for people on this site:
- Support Spam and Copyright minimum damages
- Claim that both are two high and the spammer has been unjustly treated
- Openly accept that they hold a hypocritical position
- Try to differentiate them somehow, the spammer was attempting to make money even though he wasn't a big business. What about a part time DJ?
Personally I think both are too high. The very concept of a minimum punishment is insane and ties the hands of the Judge. It doesn't work for criminal cases (three strikes etc.) and it doesn't work in these cases. The punishment should be applicable to the details of the particular case, including the damage, financial gain, intent and position and history of the perpatrator.