Sleazy informercial king Kevin Trudeau’s 30-day jail sentence has been stayed by the
courts. He was slammed with it for orchestrating a spam email campaign designed to influence the judge in his case. He’s currently on trial in Civil Court fighting a complaint by the FTC that the advertising for his “natural cures” book is misleading. He was first sued by them in 1998 and banned from making false claims in the future, ordered to pay $500,000 in consumer redress and pay another $500,000 for a performance bond to ensure compliance. In 2004 he was sued again for ignoring the order and making false claims about a product called Coral Calicum. He was ordered to pay $2 million in fines and damages and banned from doing informercials except for informational publications like books, provided he make no misrepresentations. He again ignored the order which is why he is in court again. Trudeau has long been hawking his natural cures as the answer to everything from obesity to drug addiction.
In an effort to avoid further prosecution Trudeau urged his supporters to email the judge to tell him what his cures did for them and to urge him to find in his favor. The judge said his inbox was overwhelmed with spam and demands that the complaint against Trudeau be dropped and found him in contempt of court. Trudeau was scheduled to report to jail today. The court gave no reason for the change of heart but said the stay was contingent on no more spam campaigns being aimed at the judge or the court.


It comes as no surprise that scammers have been quick to exploit the 2010 Winter Olympic Games for their own benefit. Spam claiming to have exclusive videos of events like the tragic death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili have been spreading. The links lead to malicious sites pushing fake anti-virus software or dropping Trojans.
researchers say a 30% spike in phishing spam was detected following the announcement as spammers rushed to take advantage of the huge audience looking for info on the device. In addition to phishing spams hawking deals on MacBooks and iPhones, the researchers discovered widespread SEO poisoning designed to lure people searching for terms like “iPad price” or “iPad specs” to malicious sites serving malware, mostly fake anti-virus software.
Canada’s distinguished history magazine-an institution for almost 100 years, was forced to change its name due to the issues it caused with spam filters. The magazine’s former name, The Beaver, refers to Canada’s beloved national symbol, but it’s also a rather crude sexual reference to a female’s lower region. The magazine’s unintended connotation got it blocked by most spam filters. The magazine’s publisher intends to use the Internet to increase the magazine’s loyal but aging subscriber base.
In a sickening but unfortunately not surprising move, spammers and scammers have quickly moved to exploit the tragic earthquake in Haiti. Security experts say spam messages claiming to be fundraising pleas have begun hitting the web. Some of the spams come with the subject line “Help The Children in Haiti-Donate Today” and claim to come from musician Wyclef Jean’s charity Yele Haiti. Others claim to be collecting money on behalf of the Red Cross, Unicef and Doctors Without Borders and urge the recipients to send money to an office in the Philippines via Western Union. Another campaign claims to be from the “Haitian Disaster Response Agency”.
A 28-year-old Romanian man is facing 5 years in prison after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit fraud related to spam. Cornel Ionut Tonita was involved in a phishing ring with two other men. The men set up fake websites designed to look like the account login pages of such companies as Citibank, Wells Fargo and Ebay. They stole passwords and financial information and passed it along to others who used it to make fake credit cards.
Hollywood and her fans, but hackers and spammers wasted no time in exploiting the tragedy. Already the top results for searches about her death are all malicious, leading to sites that attempt to download fake anti-virus software. Spam messages with links leading to similar sites have also been detected.