On Friday the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced a crackdown on two massive robocall operations as described on their website. Unfortunately the penalties sound less like a crackdown than a wrist-slap.

The two “ringleaders,” Justin Ramsey and Mike Jones, along with their companies and business partners, settled with the FTC by signing legal agreements that forbid them from continuing to call numbers on the Do Not Call list, and they have also agreed to pay a combined penalty of over half a million dollars.

That strikes me as a pretty weak punishment given that it seems likely they’ll still end up well ahead financially, having made millions upon millions of illegal calls over four years or more.

On the other hand, Ramsey, Jones, et al are still being sued by multiple state attorneys general, so maybe they’ll end up paying more. It also reassures me that they must have lawyers to pay, and maybe that’s what’s really going to hit them hard.

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