CircleID

Finally, why was this dispute in arbitration? I would think MySpace would want to be in front of a jury who could inflict its passion and emotion on Richter? It seems like Richter moved to compel arbitration of the dispute. (I say this based on a quick look at the pacer docket.) If Richter moved to compel arbitration, and MySpace opposed this, going to arbitration alone was a victory for Richter.

It was in arbitration because Richter's attorney (and his father Steve Richter) came up with a clause in myspace's own user agreement which said arbitration was the preferred course.

The unsolicited email to myspace users was allegedly sent using phished accounts.

There were two parties to this case - with Russian / Eastern European names - who were served with permanent injunctions against phishing myspace or accessing it.

I would suggest that you start reading up on the filings - start at http://www.spamsuite.com/node/64

Not that it'd help though .. Richter's net worth is quite a lot more than the $6 million he's had to pay out in this case.

http://www.47-usc-230c2.org/2008-06-16-application-to-confirm-arbitration-award-OCR.pdf

particularly page 59 -

The need to award substantial damages is informed by Scott Richter's undisputed admission that he would be willing to pay one million dollars in litigation to make eight million dollars in profit.

Like I said, you need to do a lot, repeat lot more research.