One Spammer Sentenced To 4 Years In Jail As Another Escapes From Prison

from the revolving-doors dept

Last week, we asked you how you would sentence a convicted spammer, and you came up with all sorts of colorful solutions. I doubt it influenced the judge much, but she's now sentenced the spammer in question to almost four years in jail, noting that she hopes it will serve as a warning to other spammers, especially unrepentant ones like Robert Soloway:

"This individual has refused to stop his criminal conduct, notwithstanding two separate civil judgments and an injunction by a U.S. federal court judge. I suggest to you the only effective way to stop Soloway is a long prison sentence during which he'll be incapable of continuing this criminal activity."

Of course, on the very same day the sentence was handed down, another spammer escaped from the minimum security prison where he was serving a 21-month sentence. Federal Marshals and the FBI are apparently now searching for him. Perhaps Soloway will have a bit more security.

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More Spammers Getting More Long Term Sentences; But Does It Help?

from the rot-in-jail dept

While there are still plenty of people out there who think that there can be no punishment that is too cruel for spammers, it still seems like incredibly long sentences are a bit out of proportion with the crime. Two more spammers have now been sentenced to over five years each for sending out pornographic spam emails in violation of CAN SPAM. There is an argument to be made that such high penalties act as a deterrent to other spammers, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that that's true. Considering that the amount of spam being sent has continued to grow over time (despite some other high profile sentences) it's unclear whether these long sentences really do much good.

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