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March 18, 2006
US spam king confirms move to New Zealand
Television New Zealand's "One News" program has obtained an on-camera interview with Brendan Battles, in which he admitted to being the American spam king who had apparently retired last year.
Rumors of the Florida spammer's relocation started last October, when someone anonymously posted a report of Battles' move to Kiwiland to the Nanae newsgroup.
If Battles had planned to turn over a new leaf in New Zealand, those hopes began to unravel when he made the mistake of spamming a New Zealand-based anti-spammer (sample here) earlier this month. The message was part of a small spam run advertising broadband wireless from Wired Country Direct, a unit of Compass Communications.
Following the March 3 spam incident, Computerworld published a story this week in which Battles, who now resides in Auckland, denied he was the same person reviled by anti-spammers.
Battles, who regularly tangled online with anti-spammers in the past, has returned to the Nanae newsgroup. Yesterday he blamed participants for getting him fired from Compass, where he worked as a territory sales manager.
"Well, done making me look bad, what an effort on your part. Happy that I lost my job? Well hopefully I can find something better," he wrote.
Let's hope that by "something better" he means a position that doesn't involve spamming.
Posted by brian at March 18, 2006 12:08 PM