ACA to prosecute alleged spammer
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) alleges Wayne Mansfield and his company, Clarity 1, sent at least 56 million commercial e-mails in the 12 months after the Spam Act was enacted in April 2004.
Most of these were unsolicited spam, claims the ACA.
The regulator also claims the Perth-based company "harvested" e-mail addresses for spamming purposes, and used a network of servers around the world to send the e-mails.
The ACA has appealed for an interim injunction against Clarity 1 before the court hearing in Perth on July 20.
An ACA spokesperson told ZDNet Australia Mansfield had received several warnings before it raided his company premises in April.
This is not the first time Mansfield has been accused of spamming. In 2002, he unsuccessfully tried to sue antispam activist Joey McNicol after the latter published the IP addresses of T3 Direct, a company that Mansfield owned.
Mansfield claimed that McNicol's actions resulted in a blacklist of his online marketing operations.
The Spam Act carries penalties of up to AU$220,000 per day for first-time corporate offenders and up to AU$1.1 million per day for repeat offenders.