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Just the Fax, Please.
It looks like the millions one can pocket if he or
she wins the lottery just isn't enough anymore -- or so it seems after a
Silicon Valley businessman says it's time for "blast fax" king Fax.com to
pay up -- to the tune of $2.2 trillion.
In suits filed in state and federal courts, software company owner Steve
Kirsch and another plaintiff seek the damages provided by law, $500 for
each unsolicited commercial fax over the last four years. If a judge
certifies either suit as a nationwide class action on behalf of all
recipients, the figure can be multiplied by 3 million, the number of faxes
that the company boasts it sends each day, Kirsch said.
That comes out to roughly $2.2 trillion, give or take a million or
two, even without invoking another section of the law that allows judges
to triple damages for willful violations, Kirsch said.
Kirsch said he's gotten more than 100 unwanted faxes at his San Jose home
during the last several months and many more at his company, from various
advertisers but all traced to a Fax.com computer.
In addition to the cost and clutter, he said, there's the annoyance of
being awakened at 3 a.m. by a beeping tone from an errant fax dialer.
"This is happening to tens of millions of people across America," Kirsch
said. "The only way that this practice will stop is if enough people step
forward and use the legal system to enforce their rights."
Now let's put this case into some kind of
perspective. The gross national product of all countries in the entire
world stands at $29 trillion or thereabouts. So if the plaintiffs could
actually pull off this heist, they would pocket something like seven
percent of the earth's annual output if they could collect it.
Beside the butt load of damages Kirsch seeks, the suits also requests that
the court order the company to cease its sending of unsolicited faxes.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle, "Silicon Valley man
demands Fax.com end unsolicited messages, " August 22, 2002
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