Ohio Law Could Send Spammers To Jail

ej0c writes "We in Ohio are set to save you from Spam. The legislature, with AOL's help, passed a tough anti-spam bill (Reuters). Spam in Ohio, and you'll be in the can for 6 months, with fines of $25,000 per violation, or $2 to $8 per e-mail. Text of the Act."

Comments

Spambotnet?

[buro9]

Scenario... innocent dumb user has their computer hijacked and made part of a spam botnet.

Did they just spam? Are they now off to jail?

Criminal Charges= CAN-SPAM Civil from Ohio

[CoolSilver]

This is an extention of the CAN-SPAM act.

(H) The attorney general may bring a civil action, pursuant to the "CAN-SPAM Act of 2003," Pub. L. No. 108-187, 117 Stat. 2699, 15 U.S.C. 7701 et seq., on behalf of the residents of the state in a district court of the United States that has jurisdiction for a violation of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, but the attorney general shall not bring a civil action under both this division and division (F) of this section. If a federal court dismisses a civil action brought under this division for reasons other than upon the merits, a civil action may be brought under division (F) of this section in the appropriate court of common pleas of this state.

Additional civil cases may be personally filed with the state over spam. This is stating that the attorney general has no judical power in the courts of Ohio. Such as the normal separtation of state and federal branches and laws. If the federal goverment fails to honor the CAN-SPAM act. You can still seek compensation through civil action through Ohio court.
Good news for me, however it is hard to say if this will help. I can see ISP rates going up due to increased labor with judical action requesting for records.

Re:Thats one way to stop them?

[JudgeFurious]

That is in fact totally correct. If "Joe Trailerpark" is faced with a consequence along the lines of a 6 month prison stretch then he's going to take that into account when deciding whether he really wants to make that fast cash and certainly it sounds harsh. That's why it works. Is Joe Trailerpark a "criminal" though? Probably not but that's exactly why this could be effective.

I have a law enforcement background (8 years of MP work in the army followed by another 5 years in civilian law enforcement) and this reminds me of something I learned many years ago in one of the endless ongoing training courses I sat through. The subject was capital punishment as a deterrant but the basic idea still fits.

We went over a series of case studies with interviews that clearly showed that the death penalty was not in any way a deterrant to the people who had consented to be interviewed. They either never considered it or the idea that they might be caught and sentenced to death for doing what they did was in no way a factor when they made the decision to commit the crime.

When another series of interviews were done with people who agreed to discuss the death penalty most of the respondent stated that they would consider the possiblity of being put to death a big factor in whether they would commit a murder regardless of the circumstances. They also were very much under the illusion that having a death penalty in place helped reduce the number of murders.

Basically it comes down to the mindsets of criminals being very different from the mindsets of the average person. A harsh sentence deters those who in most cases wouldn't do it to begin with and barely registers with the people who would. In Joe Trailerparks case finding out whether he decides to spam in the face of prison time will be pretty revealing. Some of them, probably a majority of them will be deterred from doing it. Others, probably far fewer, regardless of how harsh the penalty may be will do it anyway.