Big fine for European Spammer

Spammers beware, as the punishment for spamming online is starting to have financial repercussions.

Dutch regulator OPTA recently fined Reinier Schenkhuizen €250,000 out of which €150,000 was punishment for sending out junk emails and €100,000 was because he did not provide a way for recipients to opt out of the messages.

According to the OPTA, Schenkhuizen was able to send out 21 million spam messages using the mass mailing portal ADVERTERENisGRATIS that is owned by his own firm, Serinco Benelux.

If Schenkhuizen continues to send out spam he will face an additional €5K fine for each day with a maximum of €100K.

This is not news to Schenkhuizen however, as he was warned in March of 2005 to stop sending spam or face consequences.

379 complaints later the OPTA finally acted.

Schenkhuizen maintains his innocence, claiming that he simply developed the mailing portal and is not responsible for any of the spam that was sent from it.

He additionally claims that the OPTA does not understand that his firm’s name is integrated into any email sent from the portal.

In May 2008 the OPTA fined two corporations €500K for continually breaking the Dutch anti-spam law.

Additionally, a Dutch botnet was hit with fines totalling up to €75K for distributing 9 billion spam messages, a large percentage of which were for penis enhancement pills.

The large fines should come as a relief to Schenkhuizen, as some countries such as Italy incorporate prison time into spammers’ sentences.