Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is cracking down on illegal spammers.
On Thursday he brought the state's first lawsuit against one of the world's largest spam operations.
The person behind it can be found close to home, Abbott said.
"He's a man who lives right here in Austin, Texas, and is a student at The University of Texas, but he is reaching out and harassing hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. and across the world," Abbott said.
In the last six months, the AG's office said undercover accounts received 24,000 illegal e-mails from Ryan Samuel Pitylak.
The attorney general said PerPerAction, Leadplex L.L.C. and Leadplex, Inc., were registered in Nevada, but had a global reach.
Mark Trotter, of California, was also named in the suit.
The state believes the two men made hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars through this scheme.
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Spammer sued
The state of Texas has sued a student accused of being a spammer.
 
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According to watchdog group SpamHaus, PayPerAction is the fourth-largest spam operation in the world.
PayPerAction has more than 250 assumed company names.
Local resident Dewey Coffman received one too many spam e-mails and finally did something about it.
He archived and forwarded spam messages over to the AG's Office.
His main concern with spam in general for his children.
"A lot of the pornography content is offensive and that is what has concerned me the most. You can't even let the kids in the room when your reading e-mail because some the spam contains that and it will flash up on your screen before you have a chance to get rid of it," Coffman said.
There are two ways to see if you've been sent illegal spam:
 | | Check for misleading subject lines that are intended to trick people into opening them. |
| | Look for a Web page to submit contact information. |
This is where spam operators make their money.
A consumer submits contact information to that Web site.
Spam operations, like PayPerAction, also make a profit by selling personal information to other companies for as much as $28 per lead according to Abbott.
This is just the beginning of the state's spam fighting efforts, the attorney general said.
For more information on this lawsuit or the fight against spam operations visit www.oag.state.tx.us.
