It’s about time! LawMeme reports that Virginia has just convicted a brother and sister for spamming. They both received criminal convictions – the first ever for spamming – with the brother receiving a prison sentence of nine years! The conviction was under a new Virginia criminal spam law, enacted slightly before the CAN-SPAM Act was passed. The law bars people from sending bulk email that is unsolicited and masks its origin. They were each convicted of three counts of sending emails with fraudulent and untraceable routing information. According to the SF Chronicle, Attorney General Jerry W. Kigore called Virginia’s anti-spam law the toughest in the country.
Apparently the spammers sent emails advertising things like a “FedEx refund processor” that claimed to allow people to make $75 an hour working from home. In one month alone, they received 10,000 credit card orders of $39.95 for the processor.
The Spammers resided in North Carolina, but VA authorities were able to assert long-arm jurisdiction over them since they derived economic benefit and caused tortious harm to Virginia residents as well as Virginia equipment.
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