Judge will send message to spammers

A LANDMARK CASE in which a spammer is expected to do at least some jail time will set precedent for similar cases in the next day or so.

Robert Soloway, also known to his friends as King Spam, will soon be sentenced by Seattle Judge Marsha Pechman, but the lawmaker has admitted that she is having difficulties deciding on a fitting punishment for the crime.

"When I look at the guidelines, this crime doesn't fit easily into slots," Pechman said, referring to a matrix provided by the Federal Government to help in sentencing, before going on to liken spam to pollution, saying, "Some are poisoned by it, others are just annoyed."

Very few people have been prosecuted for spamming, but because of the sheer volume of annoying mails sent out by Soloway, the prosecution has asked that he serve 14 years behind bars. That he will spend some time in chokey is pretty much certain as his defence team didn't even bother to argue against the possibility.

Soloway may also be asked to stump up huge amounts of cash in addition to jail time as the Government is currently trying to calculate a dollar value of the damage caused by his spamming acivities, based on the amount of man-hours wasted cleaning up his mess.

Aaron Kornblum, a Volish lawyer, has been seen lurking at the back of the court room awaiting the outcome of the trial, not least because Soloway still owes the software giant $7.8 million dollars from a previous legal case. It has been reported that Kornblum thinks that jail time will have an affect on other spammers. "I hope it sends a message to those engaging in illegal activity," he said. µ

L'Inq
PC World