High Profile Spammer Files For Bankruptcy — But Plans To Keep Spamming

Email

from the where-did-those-millions-go? dept

One of the highest profile spammers around has been Scott Richter and his company “OptInRealBig.” Richter has received plenty of coverage over the years for such stunts as suing SpamCop for “damaging his reputation”. He was also one of the major characters in Brian McWilliam’s fascinating Spam Kings book — which gives you the impression that Richter really likes the idea of becoming a legitimate, non-spamming email marketer, but can’t seem to stick to it. Richter also got off extremely lightly last year in the case which NY State filed against him with great fanfare. While he got away with just a slap on the wrist in that case, both Richter and OptInRealBig are now declaring bankruptcy. Of course, don’t get too excited just yet. The company claims that it’s doing just fine and is actually growing. The point of declaring bankruptcy is just to consolidate all the other lawsuits that have been filed against the company (including a $40 million suit from Microsoft) — and to reorganize the business to keep on churning out those emails.