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Jail for Selling Email Lists to Spammers

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the losing-the-key dept.

amigoro writes "UK will start jailing the people who trade in email addresses, or any other personal data. The current Data Protection Act only fines people who do that, but the money one can make from trading in personal information was far higher than the measly GBP 5000 one had to pay if caught. The new regulations will result in a two year prison sentence for violating the Act."

6 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. US by rodgster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We need an equivalent law here in the US.

    --
    Who will guard the guards?
  2. New commercial by Pakaran2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Fine: GBP 5000
    Legal bills: GBP 2000
    Your cellmate Bubba finding out that you're the one behind him getting all those Nigerian emails: Priceless

    1. Re:New commercial by CaptainZapp · · Score: 4, Funny

      And don't forget that Bubba layed his grubby hands on just about any pen1s enlarrrgement offer he received by email.

      --
      ich bin der musikant

      mit taschenrechner in der hand

      kraftwerk

  3. Jail Time by Normal+Dan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems everyone these days are too eager to throw people in jail. Two years in jail for a non-violent crime? Two years of your life is a very long time. It's longer than you may think, and spending it in jail doesn't help society very much. Yes, I know it's suppose to be a deterrent, but I think a better deterrent would be a much larger fine, probation, and maybe your email address along with your crime made publicly known. Regardless, I still think we are too quick to just throw people in jail and forget about them.

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    1. Re:Jail Time by LighterShadeOfBlack · · Score: 4, Insightful

      While I don't think jailing people who illegally trade in personal data (it's not just the spammers themselves affected by this law remember) is too much, your idea that jailing a spammer is more worthy than jailing a rapist or a violent criminal because of the number of lives involved is obscenely stupid. For all the millions of lives impacted by spam, that impact on each is still nothing more than inconvenience. The very concept that a million people's inconvenience is worse than "less than a hundred" people's lives, whether literally ended or "just" destroyed by rape or violent abuse is ridiculous.

      Sure, waking up in the morning and finding 70 emails, of which 65 are spam is pretty damn annoying, but it's nothing in the bigger picture. You need to seriously take a step back from the computer and get some fucking perspective.

      --
      Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
  4. Punishment fitting the crime not possible here by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 4, Informative

    UK is a member of the EU, and as such is not allowed to restore the death penalty. Thus, death by torture as subject implies, is not an option, and jail time will have to do.

    I really hate the pervasive meme that a crime is less of an issue if the damage is spread out over many victims, rather than concentrated on a few individuals. The economic damage done by a single large scale spam attack is large enough to fund several life saving operations. Just because you can't name the person who died doesn't make the crime any less severe.

    And yes, the two years jail time is the upper limit, reserved to the worst cases. Most offenders will get far less than that, and first time offenders will most likely not even face jail time.