Jail for spammer...

[Rat]

A man has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Virginia judge for sending millions of junk emails, or "spamming".

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, is the first person in the US to get a prison term under a spam law. He is said to have been the world's eighth most prolific spammer. By selling sham products and services advertised in his messages, he earned up to $750,000 (£398,000) per month.

Jaynes has appealed, and the court has put off the start of his prison term because the new law raises questions.
Under Virginia law, sending bulk email using fake addresses is a crime.
"It was not just sending bulk emails, he was falsifying the routing information, disguising the origin," said prosecutor Lisa Hicks Thomas.
"The end user couldn't say: don't send this to me," she added.
Ms Thomas said she was pleased with the ruling and hoped it would be upheld.

Source: BBC News.

Jaynes was operating though an America Online (AOL) server in Loudoun County, where the world's largest Internet services provider is based, and is believed to have sent some 10m unwanted emails a day.

Products advertised in his emails included a "Fed-Ex refund processor" which he claimed would have allowed people to earn $75 an hour by working from home.

Jaynes, who is from North Carolina, will appeal on the grounds that he has been charged as an out-of-state resident under a Virginia law that has only just come into effect.
His sentence is the harshest punishment handed down so far for junk emailing in the US, and appears to be a strong signal that authorities will not tolerate the spamming business.

Jaynes has pledged that regardless of the final outcome of his trial, he will never again be involved in what he called the "email marketing business".

[me here]

LOL... "email marketing business"...

[nesman]

I hope his cell mate has the enlarged penis that my spam tries to sell me.

[armyman]

dam dident know u could go to jail for spamming emails but thats alot of mail lol iv gottom just emails i got alot of blocks maybe he was 1 of them lol thats just nutz

[Rat]

^^^^ Babelfish anyone? ^^^^

[quicksilver]

WOT
Translated Rat I think he means, put the spammer in the slammer, with the guy Nes is on about

I think the judge had in mind penal servitude, but it sounds like a good idea to me

[KM]

but - how will i make my penis larger if he stops sending me the helpful emails?

[Rat]

You could always give him your snail mail postal address and wait for the 'you have been pre-selected' offers to arrive.

[moongirl]

Timeshare spammer jailed, November 2005

Testimony from US ISP Earthlink has led to a one-year prison sentence for a notorious timeshare spammer. Peter Moshou was also ordered to pay $120,000 in compensation this week following his June conviction for violation of the CAN-SPAM Act. Moshou's criminal prosecution was among the first under US anti-spam legislation.

Moshou was charged with sending millions of spam emails in 2004 and 2005 seeking personal information by offering brokerage services for people interested in selling their timeshares after Earthlink sued him in January. EarthLink's lawsuit charged Moshou with CAN-SPAM violations including spoofing sender identities, using deceptive subject lines and failing to provide an electronic unsubscribe option.

Separately, EarthLink announced on Thursday that it secured a $15.4m court order last month against a man implicated in the distribution of hundreds of thousands of unsolicited emails advertising discount ink jet printer cartridges and other printer supplies. Like other such judgments it would seem unlikely that Craig Brockwell and his company, BC Alliance, will ever be able to pay up but the ruling does place an injunction against Brockwell preventing him from illegally spamming any internet user, regardless of the user's ISP.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/