HELL YEA!

[Fritz]

Spam Sent by Fraud Is Made a Felony Under Virginia Law
By SAUL HANSELL


n the toughest move to date against unsolicited commercial e-mail, Virginia enacted a law yesterday imposing harsh felony penalties for sending such messages to computer users through deceptive means.

The law would be enforced against those who use fraudulent practices to send bulk e-mail, commonly known as spam, to or from Virginia, a state that is headquarters for a number of major Internet providers, including the nation's largest, America Online.

The new statute adds criminal penalties for fraudulent, high-volume spammers. It outlaws practices like forging the return address line of an e-mail message or hacking a computer to send spam surreptitiously. Those found guilty of sending more than 10,000 such deceptive e-mail messages in one day would be subject to a prison term of one to five years and forfeiture of profits and assets connected with these activities.

Public outrage at spam is causing states and Congress to start looking at stronger measures against it. The Internet industry estimates that spam represents nearly half of all e-mail sent. And a new report by the Federal Trade Commission yesterday found that two-thirds of spam is sent with either false return addresses or a misleading subject line.

Such anger from computer users is even causing some in the industry to support federal legislation, if only to avoid having to deal with a patchwork of state anti-spam laws. More than two dozen states have anti-spam laws, but enforcement problems and low penalties have made many of the laws ineffective.

Virginia's governor, Mark R. Warner, said the new law could have a significant effect on spam because half of all Internet traffic flows through the state. The passage of e-mail through Virginia-based Internet service providers, he said, gives state prosecutors the ability to reach the purveyors of spam in other states and jurisdictions, noting that an earlier, weaker state anti-spam law had survived constitutional challenges.

"Many spammers see the current system that imposes civil fines as just a cost of doing business," Governor Warner said. "We hope we will see some high-profile prosecutions. If someone faces a jail sentence and a major forfeiture of assets, it will serve as a deterrent."

But some legal experts said they doubted whether Virginia would have as much of an impact as Mr. Warner suggested. Legal cases, they said, would probably be bogged down by questions over jurisdiction. Moreover, there are practical problems that limit the ability of prosecutors to reach beyond their own states.

Shane Ham, a senior analyst who studies anti-spam legislation for the Progressive Policy Institute, said, "I can't imagine the state attorney general in Virginia getting a lot of cooperation if they call up the police in California saying that they want them to arrest and extradite someone who is wanted for spamming."

About half the states have tried to regulate various aspects of spam. The first bill was passed in Nevada in 1997, and simply required that marketers offer recipients a way to be removed from e-mail lists. Washington state has brought several anti-spam cases based on laws that prohibit sending e-mail to state residents where the sender or the subject line is falsified.

Some states, including California, require unsolicited e-mail to be identified with "ADV" in the subject line. Some of these allow recipients of e-mail that violates these rules to sue the sender and seek monetary damages.

Experts say these state rules do not appear to have had a significant effect on spam but have instead perplexed big corporations, like credit card companies and catalog merchants, that do business by e-mail.

"We need a single strong national policy to deal with spam so that no one can play the states off against each other," Mr. Ham said. Of course, even national legislation would do little to prevent spam sent from overseas, as a great deal is.

Congress, which ignored anti-spam bills introduced in the last four years, is now expected to give serious consideration to several new proposals. Indeed, prospective Congressional action is, in part, a response to anti-spam efforts by the states.

[Anrhydeddu]

Fritz, a thought. Isn't all advertising and marketing deceptive? Regardless of the medium, isn't it all about sending messages through deception (to get you to buy something you really don't need)?

As much as I hate spam, I just don't think any laws can really work effectively.

[QuikSand]

Shane Ham, a senior analyst who studies anti-spam legislation for the Progressive Policy Institute, said, "I can't imagine the state attorney general in Virginia getting a lot of cooperation if they call up the police in California saying that they want them to arrest and extradite someone who is wanted for spamming."

Okay, Mr. Ham (if that is your real name...

What if the authorities in the Commonwealth of Virginia caled up law enforcement in alifornia, and told them that the individual had been charged with/convicted of a felony under Virginia law. Do you think there might be a little bit better "cooperation' there?

need a single strong national policy to deal with spam so that no one can play the states off against each other," Mr. Ham said.

Okay, now I see your agenda. Let's just all rally behind the PPI and hope they can deliver for everyone, rather than trying to do anything in the most heavily-trafficked state in the country.

[Fritz]

The next thing to look for is some specific news news on how Virginia plans to enforce the law.

[Kodos]

God bless those who fight spam.

[Franklinnoble]

Funny how AOL (based in VA) is supposedly "anti-spam" yet is notorious for clogging the postal service with millions of AOL floppies and CD's over the last decade.

Oh, and I love how they now have pop-up killer software... when the first thing you get when you visit AOL.com is a pop-up ad... probably advertising the pop-up killer feature... egads.