Dan Balsam doesn’t like spam.  In fact, he hates it. Enough so that he went to law school, left a career in marketing and now spends much of his time filing law suits against spammers.

And earlier today he was awarded $7k in a rare court ruling against a spamming organization ($1,000 for every offending email + legal fees).

The unsolicited email Balsam received was from 2007. The spammer (Trancos, Inc.) is now expected to appeal the decision.

When all is said and done here, this begs the question: was it worth it?

Let’s do the math:

3 years + Team of Attorneys = $7k – Imminent Appeal + More Legal Fees = No Real Change?

Dan’s website danhatesspam.com warns that “spam is threatening the legitimacy of email as a means for communication” – but we have the feeling that “spam” has already killed the legitimacy of email for Balsam.

His site boasts a no spam policy that warns of $25,000 fees upon his reading of any piece of unsolicited commercial email as well as nine other bullet points littered with legal speak.

The problem here: the real spammers will ignore this.  You might scare off a few friends but the real spammers won’t ever even see it, and will never give Dan a chance to reference it in court either.  

The most dangerous email spam is from sources that will never show-up to a court date – from sources that are not traceable, trackable or suable.

But what he will get: a few thousand dollars out of sloppy – but mostly legitimate – email marketing companies like Trancos (an Inc. magazine fastest growing private company of ’07).

What he won’t get: an end to spam.

Frustrated email consumers like Dan have a right to a spam free inbox, but it shouldn’t have to involve an entirely new career path and a new set of life goals.  Taking back control shouldn’t be this hard.

We don’t need an entire court system to tell us who can and cannot send us an email, we should decide for ourselves.