Seattle Washington Man Arrested on Spam Charges

Seattle Washington Man Arrested on Spam Charges On 05/30/07, Robert Soloway of Seattle Washington was arrested following an indictment reached against him by a federal grand jury the prior week.

Two years ago Microsoft won a judgment against Soloway for abusing their Hotmail email service. Microsoft's anti-spam email initiatives have largely been focused on going after spammer's wallets.

Soloway is accused of selling spam-related services under the company name of Newport Internet Marketing. While he advertised his services as being legal, they were of course not.

Soloway is now accused of:

While the legal status of the first item is debatable, the second two clearly violate the CAN-SPAM act.

Soloway also apparently sold software to customers so they could do their own spamming, but failed to provide promised support for such software. When users complained that the software didn’t work, he threatened them with extra charges and possible referral to a collection agency.

Also among the charges are identity theft, money laundering and fraud. It would seem there may be more to this case than just a shady spammer ripping-off customers.

Soloway could be fined up to roughly three-quarters of a million dollars if found guilty. This amount reflex the total revenue his business brought in illegitimately.

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