Essie's Heroes

Essie names her first hero for 2011. Daniel Balsam runs the website Danhatesspam.com. His mission is to clean up our email boxes from the illegal spam that inundates most of us. His hobby is suing spammers, and he wins.

Cisco Systems estimates there are 200 billion spam messages circulating a day, accounting for 90 percent of all email. While what Balsam is doing amounts to less than a drop in the proverbial bucket, he says that he feels like he's doing some good -- and he's making a living at it. He's successfully sued for well in excess of a million dollars.

And what do the spammers think of him? They say he is "unfairly exploiting anti-spam sentiment." What hypocrites! Balsam sometimes finds himself on the defense side of the courtroom. Tagged.com sued him for violating terms of an earlier settlement by telling the company he was planning to post terms of the agreement on his website. Balsam said those suits are generally just retaliation suits. "I feel comfortable doing what I'm doing," he said, "and I'm not going away."

So, Daniel, you get a great big Essie May salute! Now why don't you get on those pesky telemarketers?

"Taking spam senders to court." The Dallas Morning News; December 27, 2010; p. 3D.