I actually kind of miss the Nigerian scam.

Tired of injustices being handed to the public? Sick of hearing about slick greedy lawyers punishing homeowners for simply having a burglar fall down and break a bone? Well here's a story that proves that there are just and noble courts in our often misguided legal community.

A Florida man was sued by a small ISP, CIS, for spamming. The complaints involved high trafficking of their servers and falsely using the ISP's domain name when sending the emails. The judge ordered the spammer to pony up 11 billion dollars. That's right. $11,000,000,000.

The owner of CIS, Robert Kramer, seems to understand that he'll never see the money; however everyone involved, sans the spammer, seems happy with the judgment. Most ISPs and even consumers know that this ruling will not eliminate spam, nor will it even make much of a dent. Most spam originates from countries such as China and Russia where it's difficult to track the perpetrators.

This is my plea to all of you. Please for the love of all that is holy do not purchase things from spam mail. Their products will not enlarge your breasts or penis, nor will some Nigerian give you over $100,000 for a hundred dollar investment. There is no such thing as an email tracking program and Bill Gates will not send you money for simply sending personal email. Just don't do it.

Purchasing these products and services costs everyone. When spammers clog the servers in ISPs the companies have to hire more labor and more equipment. Who pays? The user of course. Cut the demand and it saves all of us a lot of money.

I wish we could develop a program that would send an electric shock through the mouse when anyone clicks an email that states in it's subject line EN1&R6E YOUR PEN15. Better yet the speakers would loudly boom "YOU HAVE A SMALL WILLY...HAHAHAHA...." in a girly voice over and over again. Would send a lot of idiot men with small pee pees to the unemployment line.

"Like almost everyone who uses e-mail, I receive a ton of spam every day. Much of it offers to help me get out of debt or get rich quick. It would be funny if it weren't so exciting." - Bill Gates

Clinton Internet provider wins $11B suit against spammer