There’s nothing more irritating than a spam-and-run hit on an open group, usually advertising the “Best skins in SL” or the “Hottest Club Now Open” or other nonsense.

Well, the law is on the side of anti-spam as evidenced by the ruling against spam kings who clogged up mySpace with e-mails to members, usually leading to Web sites selling porn, ring tones, or other useless junk. The $230,000,000 award to mySpace puts teeth into the anti-spam law. (And yeah, that’s 230 with another 6 zeros behind it).

Which isn’t to say that great skins are useless junk. And I’m more likely to buy from the best than click on a SLurl sent by some hit-and-run griefer (because sure, this is griefing in its way).

The law provides for a $100 fine for every spam message, tripled if done “knowingly and willfully”. So if your group gets spammed and there’s 100 members in the group, by my calculation that’s a $10,000 promotion for some little mall somewhere with misaligned prims. A quick report over to Linden maybe? Does the TOS allow this? Or should we be lobbying Linden itself to bring someone to judgement to set an example?

On the other hand….much like the letters I get from exiled Nigerians and relatives of some dead Iraqi, I can sometimes find spam amusing. And for a quiet group, there’s nothing like a drive-by spam to get everyone talking again. So maybe before we file our lawsuits we should give a little note of thanks to our spammer friends for at least kick-starting a conversation and reminding us where the “ban from group” button is.