bucy wrote:
] ] Virginia announced yesterday the indictments of two people
] ] on criminal charges involving unsolicited e-mail, the
] ] first case to be brought under an antispam law that took
] ] effect in June. Virginia is one of the few states with
] ] laws that include criminal penalties for sending
] ] unsolicited bulk e-mail, or spam.
]
] Not sure if this is good or bad.

This is good. This guy is the number 8 spammer. He is going to prison. Clearly this announcement did not impact the amount of spam I got this morning. There is a great deal that remains to be seem about this:

This is the test case. If it is smooth sailing, they'll prosecute more. They'll do it early in the morning some day when no one expects it and most of the top names on the Spamhaus list will go down. It won't happen for several years, however. The spam might start to slow before that date if this case goes well for the prosecutors. The smart money knows when to sell.

Domestic spammers can avoid this guy by not spamming AOL. I doubt very seriously that you can make money in spam without spamming AOL.

It remains to be seen how the federal law will play here. If it prevents the Virginia law from being enforceable when it comes into effect, this arrest will be meaningless. We'll have to wait for the federal authorities to get around to doing something, if they do. Many spam fighters are predicting that the amount of spam people receive will increase because of the ironically named CAN-SPAM ACT. It remains to be seen.

This should have happened a long long long time ago.

As the US Government finally gets off its ass and does something about this problem, the spammers will move overseas. The countries that maintain a "we don't have time to screw around with prosecuting this" attitude that our goverment has maintained will not be able to communicate with the rest of the world. People will black hole them.