In a lovely move today, the law firm of Morrison and Foerester (conveniently known of as MoFo) is suing eTracks, purveyors of commercial spam. Apparently eTracks spammed the heck out of MoFo’s clients. After contacting eTracks to cease mailing them, eTracks subsequently sent out 6,500 more emails. In the grand scheme of things 6,500 is a rather paltry amount; but if MoFo wins this case, it opens the door for other law firms.
The suit is based on two California laws. One of laws states that emails that contain adult content have to be electronically tagged as being so. The second law states “forbids the use of CA based equipment of an electronic service provider, such as Morrison & Foerster, to transmit unsolicited email advertisements to the service provider's users if the provider's policy prohibits such use of its equipment.”
MoFo is seeking damages that include all attorney’s fees and what the state of CA has mandated to be the restitution for spam - $50 for each unsolicited email, up to $25,000 per day. Which means that MoFo could receive up to $325,000 just from 6,500 emails.
Lesson #1 – Don’t spam a lawyer.
Lesson #2 – Don’t spam the largest law firm in California, one that has over 1,000 lawyers on staff.
Lesson #3 – And especially don’t spam a company that calls itself MoFo.