Spammer’s Conviction Upheld

I read about Jeremy Jaynes last week. Hurray for the Virginia Supreme Court. I think they struck a blow for beleaguered email inboxes everywhere.

On March 7, last Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court upheld the first felony conviction for illegal spamming in our country. All I can say is: WAY TO GO. They further said that Virginia’s anti-spam law doesn’t violate free-speech rights.

53,000 emails
The spammer in question was Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, North Carolina. This ... this... guess I’ll settle for the noun man rather than a more illustrative label. This man was considered one of the top 10 spammers in the world (that’s right - the world!) in 2003. He was convicted of “massive distribution of junk email” and sentenced to 9 years in prison. In July 2003 alone, he sent more than 53,000 emails.

Last year I read a report that said the burden of unwanted email had the potential of crippling the Internet. The crap clogs up everyone's system. The wasted man-hours alone in dealing with it could be put to far greater use. Some days I’m so disgusted with the hundreds of emails that hit my various email addresses that I’d like to chunk the computer through the window.

Get serious
As a freelance writer, I see jobs posted every day for people to do volume email work. Anyone who knowingly plans to distribute spam, and anyone who knowingly does the work should be locked up. No parole. And I’m not the only one who is fed up. I just wish that all the other states would jump on the band wagon and start putting some teeth behind their anti-spam statutes.

Recant and rename
Actually, whoever named junk email Spam should recant. They offended a perfectly good product beloved in Hawaii. Change the name to what it really is: CrapMail.