Spam Bigwig Settles With Microsoft, Texas

Ryan Pitylak, the 24-year-old ex-spammer who admitted to sending 25 million unsolicited messages a day at his “peak” in 2004, has settled lawsuits with the state of Texas and Microsoft that wound up costing him more than $1 million and most of his personal assets, the Associated Press reports via MSN Money.

Under the settlement with Microsoft, Pitylak, who graduated from the University of Texas in May, pledged never to send another false, misleading or unsolicited electronic message, according to the AP. Pitylak plans to offer his services to Web firms looking to combat spam, and he said he’d have to sell off his $430,000 residence and 2005 BMW to pay the related legal fees, the AP reports.

The Spamhaus Project, a U.K.-based organization that keeps tabs on high-profile spammers and works with law enforcement officials to crack down on them, once ranked Pitylak as the fourth-worst spammer in the world, the AP reports.

Civil settlements were reached with both Microsoft and Texas in federal court last month, according to the AP.

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