Prolific Spammer's Conviction Upheld

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The Virginia Supreme Court upheld the nation's first felony conviction for spamming today. The courts ruled that Virginia's anti-spamming law does not violate free-speech rights.

"This is a historic victory in the fight against online crime," state Attorney General Bob McDonnell said in a written statement. "Spam not only clogs e-mail inboxes and destroys productivity; it also defrauds citizens and threatens the online revolution that is so critical to Virginia's economic prosperity."
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Personally, I don’t see how it is a “right” to be able to harass me, spam me or send porn links on a service I pay for. Am I wrong? Leave your thoughts in the comment section.
 
If I am in public you have the right to broadcast your spam messages to anyone that can hear (within the law). When I am at home you can’t come on to the property I ay for (private) with a bullhorn screaming about Viagra. How my PAID FOR e-mail service is any different is beyond me.
 
Anyone made a graphical chart detailing the prices of "Viagra" from these spammers? I don' want to have to sift through 300 emails to get the best price....
 
Personally, i don't think they're should be any law at all on the internet, but thats just me.
 
Kudos for a good court decision for once - something seemingly becoming more and more rare these days. Fuck those spammer pricks, I hope they die. E-mail solicitations for products & companies that I deal with, and ask or sign up for (with CONSENT) is one thing. These BS v1âgr-â, morgtage, diploma and other scams are annoying.. Especially the ones that use the convoluted & often faked sender info. If these people were legit business(PC: people), they wouldn't need to go to such [pun] lengths [/pun].

@ Wera - in a perfect world, I *would* agree with you. But assholes like this don't deserve to exist. They should get a REAL job, and not one whose aim is to flood the inboxes of enough people for long enough, while circumventing rules & regs in the hopes that the 1:100 of people click for their crap.

I don't understand why the DMA lobbyists support these people. Legit marketing companies/orgs don't (or shouldn't) conduct themselves this way. It does nothing but give them, and their association a bad rap. If anything, I say the spam laws are too weak, and should be strengthened further, on a federal not state level (this affects people worldwide, not just in the States, or Virginia for example).
 
There is a huge difference between spamming UNSOLICITED junk to citizens PRIVATE E-mail accounts and getting anonymous information form SOLICITED sources. I don't care what it is; religious, political, commercial or otherwise spam I shouldn't be hindered by anyhtning unsolicited when using a a private medium. E-Mail is not the public airwaves or the town square where anyone can spew anything they like because of our wonderful First Amendment Rights. The supreme court did the right thing but perhaps they should of made a suggestion to revise the language of the law to specify unsolicited material.

And for anyone who would think of this, communication from legitimate government orginizations working in the public interest is never unsolicited. Our status as citizens basically means we agree to such services. That said when was the last time the Department of Justice, IRS or President decided to spam E-Mail accounts?
 
Justice Elizabeth Lacy wrote in a dissent that the law is "unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk e-mail including those containing political, religious or other speech protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."

Soooo sorry Liz. We don't want anonymous transmissions of unsolicited bulk e-mails. PERIOD! I don't care if it's from God Himself.

Precedence finally!
 
There is NO defense for unsolicited spam. If I caught someone walking up to my porch and stuffing a ton of unsolicited crap in my mailbox, there would be one scared spammer running for the fucking hills.
 
Unfortunately (at least here in the US), any kind of public address is defaulted to an "opt-in" status for giving out your information, like addresses and phone numbers. Emails could be considered public if it's posted anywhere outside of the domain it originated from.

I don't see how there can be a law against spamming any more than there could be for filling your mailbox with crap. At least an email doesn't create landfill and kill trees. Let's make a law against unsolicited US mail!!

I've had the same (free) email address for 10 years, and rarely get spam outside of their provider's ads. Although, the popular free email services get random spam all the time (yahoo.com) even if I don't share the address.

I would rather see my US mail box clean than a clean e-mail inbox... but both would be great! Can we expand the national no-call list to no-mail and no-email?? :confused:
 
We are developing laws against unsolicited phone calls as we develop thme against E-mail. The fact that the U.S. Postal Service has delivered junk mail for years before telephones and E-Mail set a precedent for both services. the difference which people are starting to understand, slowly it seems, is that while the U.S.P.S. is a government service thus a public medium your phone and e-mail are not.

As far as "free" e-mail accounts, they may not be paid for services but they are still very much private accounts. Private property and medium are not to be used at the whim of the public. Would you accept someone walking on to your private property and setting up a billboard for a product? No because it is your private property and not subject to Free Speech use laws.

As much as we harp on Free Speech Rights if you read the constitution the First Amendment only applies to laws made by congress (later interpreted to mean the Judical and Executive Branches as well). Laws are made in the public interest and support the citizens in their pursuit for our individual ideals. The First Amendment does not mean you have the right to do whatever you want. Free Speech never trumps personal property or safety.

This whole E-Mail issue falls under private property (by ownership since E-Mail service is intangible) thus Free Speech Rights don't apply. Wiggle any way you want but if you say the the 1st Amend. applies to this situation you have lost site of what the constitution really says and support everything that is a danget to our way of life. Understanding the Constitution is the responsibility of each one of us so that we don't let the government and others hinder our rights as they were written.

Sorry for the monologue but this is an issue to many don't understnad enough about. THey just regurgitate the media information with no real knowledge, no real understanding.
 
Don't everyone forget that the USPS gets paid everytime they deliver that junk, so I am sure they don't mind it one bit.

To those that wish to reduce your junk mail (to your physical mailing address), you need to opt-out of your credit bureaus...they make $ off your credit file. It should also reduce the chance of stolen identity

https://www.optoutprescreen.com
 
It's illegal because the tool forged the from address and didn't include a functional remove link. Had the idiot followed those simple regulations there would be no legal issue.
 
Fooshnik said:
It's illegal because the tool forged the from address and didn't include a functional remove link. Had the idiot followed those simple regulations there would be no legal issue.
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Actually, it's illegal because the judges said so. I'm pleased that greater minds that mine agree with me.

Then again, two chimps fighting over a banana trump me too... :D:p
 
hopefully this doesn't come back and bite everyone in the ass if they decide to put more laws on the internet
 
You know, I have a really good way to stop spam. Instead of trying to find the spammers, go after the companies the spam is promoting. If you get some spam that leads you to a website for viagra, then report that site and go after those who paid the spammer. As soon as that started happening, people would be afraid to use spammers, spammers would not get paid, therefor they would quit. I know, not a totally perfect idea, but its better than trying to sniff out the spammer himself.

Funny story, I emailed the owner of a website that I got hit with 3 spam messages in one day. Told him I did not wish to receive any more spam for his site. I threatened legal action for harassment if I continued to receive email promoting his site. The owner of the site told me it was impossible that I received spam advertising his site. I sent him the spam mail, that linked a close site that redirected to his site. The owner email me back saying that it was not his fault and I should find out who was spamming me and report them. I asked him why not you, you're the one paying for this advertising, if I threated you with a lawsuit it would make you think twice about who you select to do your advertising. I never heard back from him again......
 
Tanis143 said:
You know, I have a really good way to stop spam. Instead of trying to find the spammers, go after the companies the spam is promoting. If you get some spam that leads you to a website for viagra, then report that site and go after those who paid the spammer. As soon as that started happening, people would be afraid to use spammers, spammers would not get paid, therefor they would quit. I know, not a totally perfect idea, but its better than trying to sniff out the spammer himself.

Funny story, I emailed the owner of a website that I got hit with 3 spam messages in one day. Told him I did not wish to receive any more spam for his site. I threatened legal action for harassment if I continued to receive email promoting his site. The owner of the site told me it was impossible that I received spam advertising his site. I sent him the spam mail, that linked a close site that redirected to his site. The owner email me back saying that it was not his fault and I should find out who was spamming me and report them. I asked him why not you, you're the one paying for this advertising, if I threated you with a lawsuit it would make you think twice about who you select to do your advertising. I never heard back from him again......
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I think many companies simply pay web advertising agencies and have no idea who their ads will go to.
 
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