Fighting malware and spam

Free speech argument overturns AOL spammer conviction

Virginia court upholds notorious Jaynes' right to express himself in bulk.

Infamous AOL spammer Jeremy Jaynes, convicted of a massive spamming campaign targeting AOL users in 2004, has had his conviction overturned in a Virginia Supreme Court judgement which essentially undermines the state's local anti-spam laws in favour of free speech arguments.

Jaynes was indicted and found guilty of contravening the state of Virginia's strict laws controlling bulk email in 2004, in the first ever felony conviction of a spammer in the US. The free speech argument was first aired shortly after his initial sentencing, but the argument was dismissed by a circuit court judge, and the sentence was upheld and later confirmed by the Supreme Court. His sentence, nine years in prison, was heralded at the time as a strong message that spamming would not be tolerated, an example now seriously weakened by the court's change of mind.

The Virginia law, now under heavy fire having been labelled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, bans all unsolicited bulk mails, with a felony charge applicable if more than 10,000 mails are sent in a 24-hour period - Jaynes is thought to have sent many times this number, and to have made profits of as much as $24 million from his campaigns. The legal argument against the law holds that, as it covers all forms of bulk mail, it impinges on the right to flood inboxes with political or social messages, upheld by the US constitution. The CAN-SPAM Act, which covers the whole of the US, is not at risk from similar ruling as it only affects commercial email. It would have covered Jaynes' activities had it been in place at the time he unleashed his bombardments.

More details are at Yahoo! News here, with comment in The Register here.

VB's editor Helen Martin comments on the sentencing of convicted spammers in the September issue of Virus Bulletin - available to VB subscribers. (Click here for subscription information.)

16 September 2008

Tags: aol, conviction, free speech, jaynes, legal, spam, virginia.    del.icio.us   digg this

7 comments

I am happy for Jeremy. I fully believe Virginia was playing the unconstitutional role in this case, to say the least. Where is Jeremy going to get back all the money that was taken from him, seized, and used for legal fees? This case had to have put him through hell for over 4 years. What compensation does he get from the IDIOTS involved with trying to incriminate him? What he lost by being put in horrible, unfair situation to say the least.... Jeremy is a safe human being the deserves compensation. I am sure glad he was finally given his rights that the U.S soldiers and others that have worked so hard for us to have. By putting their lives on the line so that we could have rights as citizens of the U.S. The U.S is suppose to protect the innocent! After over 4 years justice was served for Jeremy in this case. What compensation does he get for all the mess Virginia, AOL, and all others involved caused Jeremy????? JUSTICE IS SERVED FINALLY!!!!

by Anna, 17 September 2008, 16:09

Jeremy Jaynes is a common criminal who used stolen information to massively flood email without concern about his or anyone else's personal rights/freedoms. He deserves to continue to sit in jail.

by Get Real, 17 September 2008, 19:53

The guy is not innocent, what he did was fill up peoples email inbox's with things they didn't want or need, just for his own monetary gain.

Its the same stuff pulled by the Viagra spammers, and no I don't want to enlarge that area.

by R. U. Serious, 20 September 2008, 01:26

Hey! Anyone who is feeble minded enough to actually buy a spam product or service deserves it!

Just bin the whole lot! If the half wits keep buying then a******s like him would go out of business!

by Osmodia, 22 September 2008, 22:42

This severely cripples the ability to fight spam with tough laws that protect consumers. Fraud is NOT free speech.

by Mike, 23 September 2008, 20:10

The "fruit of the poisoned tree" applies here. If the lists were unlawfully gained all the “fruit” the spammer gained by using them is unlawful also. To me this means the fruit or money is not his. If anybodies it is AOL’s.

This does not mean if a person gains information about government misconduct they can’t print it and even email it to the whole world. They just should not be able to make a profit from it. You still get your free speech you just don’t get to steal money doing it.

by Mark, 24 September 2008, 22:21

NO JUSTICE in the USA!

Make SPAMMERS PAY!

Even JUNK MAIL Costs the advertisers money.

Charge anyone sending more than 1000 emails per day at least a Penny and email. That will take some of the profit out of it.

You can put the pennies into a fund so that low-income families can get Internet service for FREE!

MAKE THE INTERNET FREE, LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!

by Screw Jeremy, 14 October 2008, 01:48

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