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Spam Government The Courts News Your Rights Online

First Felony Spam Trial Gets Underway 43

Posted by timothy from the your-assets-are-grass dept.
Iphtashu Fitz writes "Three people faced a judge in Virginia today to answer felony charges for allegedly sending millions of spams touting to AOL users. The defendants are being tried under a 2003 Virginia anti-spam law that prosecutors say is the harshest of its kind in the nation. If convicted on all counts they each face up to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors allege that one of the defendants attempted to send 7.7 million spams in a single day that touted penny stocks and software to let people work at home as a "FedEx refund processor". Defense lawyers contend that the prosecutors will be unable to prove that the defendants intentionally masked the origin of the spam nor that it was unsolicited. The defense was also concerned that the jury pool might not be objective if it was filled with AOL users."
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First Felony Spam Trial Gets Underway More

First Felony Spam Trial Gets Underway

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  • AOL (Score:5, Funny)

    by over_exposed ( 623791 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2004 @12:28AM (#10639126) Homepage
    I'd be concerned if the jury pool was filled with AOL users too... the ruling would probably be something along the lines of:

    Judge: Has the jury reached a verdict?
    Spokesperson: We have.
    Judge: How do you find?
    Spokesperson: LOL! gUiLtY like totally! ROFL! wanna cyber?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Sending millions of emails with the intent to make tons of people buy a stock to drive it's price up is illegal.

      Only if there is a misrepresentation or fraudulent intent involved.

      If the email consisted of "I bought this stock with my own money because I'm convinced that it will go up. I think that you should purchase it too."

      Where is the SEC violation?

      LK
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I used to have to deal with these scams at a previous job, and I talked to the SEC regularly.

          And I'm sure that the SEC took every one of them seriously. But as long as there is no misrepresentation, there isn't anything that the SEC can do.

          LK

          • Re:SEC (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward
            But as long as there is no misrepresentation, there isn't anything that the SEC can do.

            It's pretty much impossible to do a pump and dump without misrepresentation, duh.

  • Impartial jury? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2004 @12:50AM (#10639221)
    The only way they would get an impartial jury would be if somehow they find 12 people without an internet connection. Regardless of the provider, EVERYBODY has to deal with spam in one way or another.

    But this is one case where I wouldn't mind having the defendents tarred and feathered...

    • Re:Impartial jury? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2004 @04:07AM (#10639845)
      Putting people in jail for spamming is just stupid. Reserve jail for people who commit violent crimes. Robbery, murder, rape, child molestation, assault and battery, burglary, hit and run and drunk driving.

      Stop putting people in jail for smoking a joint or sending spam.

      Does someone, regardless of the amount of spam they send, really deserve a decade or two in prison? Take out the "I hate spam" part of it. Just based on crime versus punishment. Does this punishment really fit that crime? Considering 80% of the spam was probably filtered directly to /dev/null and even if the remaining 20% took one second from each person's life to handle, is taking one second of time from a few million people's lives worth sending someone to prison for 20% of *their* life?

      If so, I want to start sticking advertisers and door to door solicitors in prison, right now.

      Prison sentences for the heavy-handed fraud which was mentioned, makes sense. That's an existing crime that deserves punishment. But not for faking a damn SMTP header and sending it to people who didn't want it.
      • taking one second of time from a few million people's lives worth sending someone to prison for 20% of *their* life?

        There should be some punishment though. Some serious punishment. Maybe not years in prison, but definitly some prison.

        1 second from millions of people is 30+ man days. If you stole a month's pay from your company, you'd be in trouble, so how is it much different, just because the theif spread it out?

        • There should be some punishment though.

          In civil court, maybe. Punitive damages, sure. But putting someone in jail for what is essentially a nuisance? No, I don't buy it.

          Sure, you can go to jail for other nuisances, obscenity, public nudity, panhandling, public intoxication. But those are bad laws too.

          • This isn't like those crimes you listed. The ones you listed are not going to cause anyone to directly lose money, they are mostly victimless.

            It's more like someone running a garbage company and dumping garbage illegally on your property. Except they just dump one bag of garbage on every lot in town. If a company did that, they would be in jail in a second for trespass and illegal dumping.

            Spamming is not a victimless crime.

            • The ones you listed are not going to cause anyone to directly lose money, they are mostly victimless.

              While they might not cause anyone to lose money, they are most certainly not victimless.

              It's more like someone running a garbage company and dumping garbage illegally on your property. Except they just dump one bag of garbage on every lot in town.

              I don't think that analogy captures the fact that the whole point of an email account is to receive email. It's more like putting ads on people's windshiel

      • A punishment of 15 years works out to only about 61.4 seconds for each of the 7.7 million people spammed.

        - - - - - - -
        Let's forget about WMD for a bit and tackle WMA, WMV and SPAM!
      • Stop putting people in jail for smoking a joint or sending spam.

        Dude, nobody has gone to jail yet for spam. (I haven't been keeping track, maybe it's one or two. Doesn't change the argument.)

        Three quarters of a million people were arrested for marijuana posession last year alone.

        Sending spammers to jail will not add any noticeable stress on the system for quite some time, if ever. What percentage of the population is likely to engage in spamming, compared to the number likely to engage in pot smoking, o
  • If someone was facing felony charges for illegal wiretapping or stealing phones, would the defense be able to contend that only hicks without phones can be in the jury?

    If the user only wiretapped fooBell could the defense say fooBell customers cannot be in jury? no I don't think so.

    It is stupid, spam is spam is spam, unless it spam spam spam spam spam spam beans and spam, but again , we haven't got beans today.

    I hope they give them the CHAIR!!! yes the electric one! and stream it over the internet...

    Han
    • If someone was facing felony charges for illegal wiretapping or stealing phones, would the defense be able to contend that only hicks without phones can be in the jury?

      If the user only wiretapped fooBell could the defense say fooBell customers cannot be in jury? no I don't think so.

      It is stupid, spam is spam is spam, unless it spam spam spam spam spam spam beans and spam, but again , we haven't got beans today.

      No no no - it's nothing to do with that - they will be worried that AOL users are too dumb
    • Extremist! That's just a guy trying to make money, he didn't murder or rape anyone. I don't think he deserves at all the sentence that you propose. Think about this: he send you an email that you didn't ask for. You want to put him 15 years in jail for this. I don't like spam. I think spammers should be fined, but their act does not justify spending hard years in prison. Even if they tried to scam. Prison should be reserved to the criminals and drug dealers.
      • Oh dear I forgot that < and > don't work in /. - so you didn't see my sarcasm tags...

        no hang on, I thought they were obvious.

        Yes, I agree 15 years would cost the tax payer too much, just sling a rope over the dock and pull the chair away as the sentence is read :-)

        Just kidding! Fines for sure, and the defense lawers shouldn't be allowed to profit from this... I dunno... there is something about the people who send spam will figure a way of making money from getting convicted...
  • Or a judge who wasn't totally pissed off at spam, and being ineffectual at dealing with it?

    These guys are the first dude on the firing line with 10 years of pent up frustration.

    Perhaps the Judge is modestly endowed and got suckered up by some enlargment pill spam, WHO KNOWS!

    [ok could be a judgess, how sexist]

    In German do they use er/inn for the title Judge? hmmmm.

    I clicked my first email authentication link [someone had an email using antispam somthingorother] which I thought was a good idea.

    UNTIL som

  • 15 years is unduly lenient (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Wednesday October 27, 2004 @04:15AM (#10639873) Homepage Journal
    if it takes an AOL user an average of just 3 seconds of their time to see this, decide what to do with it and delete it, then 7.7 million such mails waste about 267 days of AOL users's time.

    If a spammer was this active for more than 21 days, then they are going to be spending less time in jail than they stole from other people.

    • if it takes an AOL user an average of just 3 seconds of their time to see this, decide what to do with it and delete it

      But it certainly doesn't. Many of the AOL users don't even bother checking their AOL email, and those that do usually know what to delete just by looking at the header, we're talking more like 1/3 second.

      If a spammer was this active for more than 21 days, then they are going to be spending less time in jail than they stole from other people.

      So when you net it out I guess they gaine

  • Sending email is a felony now? Where has this country gone?
  • Is it more or less than 15 years?

    How about grand theft?

    Attempted murder?

    The Enron guys?

    Betty Loren-Maltese(president from Cicero, IL- stole millions, is in the mob, etc.)

  • I think it's appropriate... if there's a widely published law that says "NO SPAM... blah blah blah" then you have to follow it... there's no argument that it's a matter of free speech. SPAM is like door to door marketing, only the guys are lined up at your door all the way around the block twice. ...And Dubya funded stem cell research using existing cell lines and illegalized the harvest of new cells from embryos. I don't see a contradiction there.

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