Scott Richter

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 This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (May 2008)

Scott Richter (born July 18, 1971) is the CEO of Media Breakaway, formerly known as OptInRealBig.com LLC. Other related companies are Dynamic Dolphin and affiliate.com.[citation needed]

He paid $7 million to Microsoft in 2006 in a settlement arising out of a lawsuit alleging illegal spam activities.[1] Richter was listed in the ROKSO top 200 spammers, but is no longer included there.[citation needed] His company once sent some 100 million emails a day. One of the most famous emails was the offer of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards in 2003; Richter claims to have sold 40,000 decks before they were even printed.

Richter once gave frequent interviews regarding spam and email marketing but now focuses on his affiliate marketing business and has not commented to the media for some time. He claims his company complies fully with all laws, meaning in part that its emails include valid subjects and origin addresses, and it honors all opt out requests. Richter was sued by Microsoft and the New York Attorney General; he settled with the New York Attorney General for $50,000 and admitted no wrongdoing.

Facing a $50 million judgment in Washington state from the Microsoft case, in March 2005, OptInRealBig.com filed for bankruptcy protection. It claimed to have assets of less than US$10 million and debts of more than $50 million. Microsoft's refusal to settle a $20 million claim based on Washington state spam law is what forced Optinrealbig to file for bankruptcy. Steven Richter, who is Scott Richter's father and President and General Counsel of Scott's company, commented "OptIn is profitable but for these lawsuits."[2]

On August 9, 2005, Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith published an open letter outlining the results of Microsoft's legal action against Richter. According to Microsoft, Richter agreed to pay $7 million in damages to Microsoft. The company from Redmond claims to give the biggest part of the money to charitable causes. The settlement was approved by the court and the bankruptcy was dismissed in April 2006. OptInRealBig.com changed its name to Media Breakaway in August 2006.

Richter claimed to run a clothing line that had items entitled "Spam King" but that business was stopped by a cease and desist letter from Hormel Foods, which owns the trademark to edible SPAM.

He was interviewed on the The Daily Show by Rob Corddry on 30 March 2004.[3]

In January 2007, his company Media Breakaway was sued by popular social networking website MySpace for allegedly gaining access to members' accounts and using them to send millions of spam messages appearing to be from users' MySpace "friends".[4]. Steven Richter, President and General Counsel of the company, denied the allegations.

Media Breakaway has also moved into promoting ringtones through through a variety of online marketing efforts. An example of such a website is Ringaza[5][6].

Media Breakaway is the owner of Dynamic Dolphin, Inc, an ICANN accredited registrar who, according to KnujOn, is one of the few Internet registrars that serve the majority of spamvertised web sites[7].

An arbitrator on June 16, 2008 awarded MySpace $ 4.8 million in damages and $ 1.2 million in attorney's fees against "spam king" Scott Richter and his Web marketing company, Media Breakaway LLC, of Westminster, Colo., "for barraging MySpace members with unsolicited advertisements." The award was 5% of the amount demanded by MySpace. MySpace alleged that due to Scott, "some of the messages were sent from accounts whose sign-on information had been hijacked by phishing." Media Breakaway however countered that rogue affiliates were responsible.[8] Microsoft Corp. won a $ 7 million settlement against him in a spam lawsuit in 2005, while the state of New York won $ 50,000 in 2004.[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ World Wide Web - MySpace Takes On the 'Spam King'
  2. ^ http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~32540~2786931,00.html
  3. ^ YouTube - CPA Empire Scott Richter
  4. ^ Reuters (January 22, 2007). "MySpace sues alleged big-time spammer". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/22/technology/myspace.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007012215. 
  5. ^ url=http://Ringaza.com
  6. ^ CBS (February 22, 2008). "'Ringing Up Big Charges For "Free" Tones'". CBS. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/22/eveningnews/main3867197.shtml. 
  7. ^ Brian Krebs (May 19, 2008). "Most Spam Sites Tied to a Handful of Registrars". The Washington Post. http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/05/most_spam_sites_tied_to_a_hand_1.html. 
  8. ^ www.boston.com, MySpace wins arbitration against alleged spammer
  9. ^ ap.google.com, MySpace wins another verdict against alleged spammer

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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