Sending Spam to Become a Felony?

The "Georgia Slam Spam E-mail Act" is intended to get seriously tough on spammers. In some cases sending spam would even be a felony.

"The goal of the Georgia Slam Spam E-mail Act is to hold accountable those who abuse the Internet and harass our citizens with fraudulent, misleading and unwanted commercial e-mail. I'm proud to have the support of a leading Internet provider like EarthLink in this effort and to be partners in this fight"

The law has serious implications for those who send spam. If the spammers meet any of the following criteria - they may be convicted for committing a felony:

- Sends in excess of 10,000 spam e-mails in a single day.

- Brings in more than $1,000 from any individual spam email or more than $50k from messages sent via a given ISP.

- Employs someone under 18 years old to send the spam on their behalf.

In these cases, the anti-spam email law would allow for up to $50,000 in fines and up to five years in the slammer. Less egregious offenses would be handled as misdemeanors with up to a year in jail, and $1k.

Earthlink has been a major backer of the proposed law intended to stop spam mail.

So far legal efforts to end spam have fallen flat. The FCC has filed some charges under CAN-SPAM - but the general consensus is that it hasn't done much to eliminate spam.

It's conceivable that tougher spam prevention laws like this one may have more effect on the situation. Alternately it could just force spammers overseas.

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