[October 26, 2004]

Spammers Face the Judge in Virginia

BY JOHANNE TORRES

Jessica DeGroot, Jeremy Jaynes and Richard Rutowski spent most of the day yesterday at a Virginia court during the beginning of first felony spam trial in the nation. The three alleged spammers are accused of working together in sending thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages through fake return e-mail addresses and fraudulent routing IP info.

The tough anti-spam law in Virginia aided officials bring the alleged spammers to face the judge. The state is believed to have one of the toughest anti-spam laws in the country—probably because of the large number of Internet providers having e-mail servers reside in the state—pushing in a large percentage of Internet traffic flow. It was reported that a large Internet service provider also assisted Virginia officials in the investigation.

The Virginia law prohibits the fabrication of fake identity information when e-mailing in bulk. According to the law, spammers can become felons when the volume of spam exceeds 10,000 e-mail messages in 24 hours, 100,000 in 30 days or 1 million in a year.

This Virginia spam trial is just part of the rapidly spreading anti-spam law enforcing sting across the nation. Just recently, I reported on the very first Can-Spam conviction in the U.S. The federal Can-Spam goes after individuals and companies that mask their identities when sending e-mail in bulk and also collect e-mail addresses to send unsolicited commercial messages. The law fines offenders with a $250 per e-mail penalty and possible criminal conviction.

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