Jail for Selling Email Lists to Spammers

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."

US

[rodgster (671476)]

We need an equivalent law here in the US.

Ahh, but until then ...

[ubrgeek (679399)]

Do I hear $5 for rodgster@yahoo.c o m?

Re:

[x_MeRLiN_x (935994)]

"Will result in" or "can result in"? A maximum sentence isn't always passed - and is in fact probably the exception rather than the norm.

Re:

[BobSutan (467781)]

It will never happen so long as the FBI and other government agencies are the buyers of such information. See, since these organizations can't legally snoop in a lot of cases they just buy the info they need from companies that are allowed to do such snooping. Only in America!

New commercial

[Pakaran2 (138209)]

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

Re:New commercial

[CaptainZapp (182233)]

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

Wont work - retarded civil servants

[sjwest (948274)]

Like your humour

but the uk's information commissioners office is far too lame to do anything about it. - explain why evil empire Microsoft sued the Milton Keynes spammer [freethcartwright.com] ,and not the civil service.

Blair and Bush masters of FUD '15 - minutes before you die'. Final thought: Imformation commisioners office (UK) could not party in brewery.

Jail Time

[Normal Dan (1053064)]

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.

Re:

[jfengel (409917)]

Fines are problematic as a punishment, because not everybody can pay them. Some of the money has already been spent by the time you get to them, and some has been hidden. You can take everything they have, which is usually less than they made off the crime. There are usually ways to legally hide money even from fines; they're reluctant to take your house, for example (though I gather that the US government has ways around that.)

Jail time is something that people can't miss.

I agree that two years should be a

Re:Jail Time

[ScentCone (795499)]

Two years in jail for a non-violent crime? Two years of your life is a very long time.

And how many years can it take to recover from having your credit history trashed, from losing your sensitive job because you appear to be financially wreckless or in debt, or from having to rebuild your reputation when someone sends around child pr0n links/content or stock-pumping scams that appear to be coming from you?

If you performed a "violent crime" that resulted in more or less the same consequences (wrecking someone's house or career), that's somehow worse, for you, than some other action that results in the same thing, long-term? How about when the person doing it is doing it to thousands of people at the same time?

spending it in jail doesn't help society very much

Other than the whole "he can't do any more of it while he's in prison" aspect, right?

maybe your email address along with your crime made publicly known

Oh no! Not public disclosure of your e-mail address! That's really some pretty serious stuff you're talking, there. No one who steals information, spreads around fraudulant messages, and is willing to take YOUR money or credibility for their own use would ever... just change e-mail addresses. These people are beyond shame. Naming them publicly does nothing, but jail time completely prevents them from any of these activities while they're locked up.

Regardless, I still think we are too quick to just throw people in jail and forget about them.

Forget about them? We have to feed them, provide medical and legal care, and 24 months later (in the example cited), administer their release. I can't imagine that you're thinking someone doing a 24-month stint is somehow going to wind up there for years longer because someone forgot that their sentence was up. Please.

It sounds more like what you're really lobbying for is harsher sentences for violent criminals. Because you can't truly be thinking that life-wrecking scam artists that cost the world's economy untold billions in (choose your currency) and irretrievably lost time are the same as someone didn't renew their dog license, or was caught distilling their own grappa in the basement.

Re:

[green1 (322787)]

>> Removing the financial incentive is the only effective way to stop spam

actually, it's worse than that, you have to not only remove the financial incentive, you also have to remove the PERCEIVED financial incentive. the former is actually not that hard, and in some cases is already accomplished. the big problem is that even if people aren't able to make a penny off of spam you will still have people who THINK they can make money off it, and that will continue to cause people to try.

what is needed mo

Re:Jail Time

[LighterShadeOfBlack (1011407)]

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.

Re:

[fractalus (322043)]

While I understand and agree with the general sentiment of your post, I would suggest that there is no X sufficiently large that "receiving X spam emails is about as bad as being raped." To suggest that even a billion emails, enough to leave your personally-owned and lovingly-maintained mail server a smoldering slag heap in the co-lo rack, compares to the very personal, real, and in many ways unfixable feeling of violation that comes with rape is just a bit extreme.

Now, can we get back to lynching spammers?

The price of spam lists

[future assassin (639396)]

just went up. Which ofcourse will create more email harvesting.

What about people who inadvertantly give away

[antifoidulus (807088)]

email addresses? Such as those who are infected with a harvester. I know that is how my gmail address got out. I didn't receive any spam until I received a mass email inviting all the 200 people who were accepted to the University of Minnesota graduate program in CS to an orientation. At least one of the people who got that must have been infected with spyware that harvests addresses(I know they should know better since they are going to be CS grad students and yet....) and spam started regularly coming into my inbox. It isn't as bad as the 100 or so spams I day I received at my old university address(which I was careless with, but that was before spam became as huge a problem as it is today).

Should the offender be tracked and punished? After all, (s)he gave away my personal info without my consent. Not intentionally and didn't make any money, but its an interesting question nonetheless.

Re:

[redheaded_stepchild (629363)]

Ok, I'll agree that prison is too harsh a crime for letting your PC become infected with malware. But how about a fine for letting it continue? Some states have a system in place to fine people for vehicles that pollute the air, why can't we fine people for letting their PC's pollute the internet?

This, like a parking ticket, isn't a felony crime that might stop you from getting a job.

What it could do is make people think about getting some education about their PCs, or at least get someone who can maintain

What happened to punishment fitting the crime?

[DaedalusLogic (449896)]

I hate spam, but traditional jail is excessive for anyone that sells e-mail or private information. I view jail as a place we should send people if the crime can actually cause physical harm to someone's life or limb. Then it makes sense for them to be physically seperated from society. If they commit a crime that's going to cost someone financially, drop a big punitive fine on their ass. Someone who sold private information so they could live the high life with a luxury car and a high rise penthouse should at worst face an entire life of paying back debts. They can live in a fleabag apartment and drive a pinto.

However, I wouldn't be opposed to say a sentence that put them in jail every weekend for two years. They can still try to earn an honest buck, and get a solid reminder of what they did wrong.

Punishment fitting the crime not possible here

[Per Abrahamsen (1397)]

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.

No jail sentence will be handed down - Policy

[caveman (7893)]

The UK government has recently instructed magistrates and judges not to jail non-violent offenders [bbc.co.uk] where possible, due to lack of space in the countries' already crowded prisons.

While the threat of jail is still there, the chances of anyone actually getting a custodial sentence for such crimes is virtually non-existant, when even major crime gets punished with fines and community service.

So, yet another UK law that looks good on paper, but will be as effective as the USA CAN-SPAM laws.

Re:THE FALCONER!

[Intron (870560)]

Do you feel like your privacy has been violated if someone that already had your e-mail address sells/trades/gives it to someone else?
-- yes

what count as deliberately misusing it?
-- any use other than the purpose for which I gave it to you

Go after people spamming and not someone giving out an e-mail address.
-- the people giving out the email address are just as guilty as the people sending spam

Re:

[CaptainZapp (182233)]

Do you feel like your privacy has been violated if someone that already had your e-mail address sells/trades/gives it to someone else?

It's actually worse then that. I feel that my sanitary and healthy living conditions are polluted by some low life scumbag who's getting rich quick by shitting into the communal water supply.

This is metaphorically speaking, of course.

Re:

[homey of my owney (975234)]

This is of no value. If it was, we wouldn't have Bank robberies (there are laws against it too). As long as there's money in it, and the technology supports it, it'll sadly continue.

Re:

[dan828 (753380)]

You seem to be saying that no laws have value if the behavior that they are intended to prevent still occurs. In addition to bank robbery, that would include murder, rape, theft of any sort, speeding, and cheating on your taxes. Since all of these things still happen, the laws against them must have no value, yes?

Re:

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

This raises an interesting point .... how loudly would the American government be screaming if a US citizen was arrested in Britain for doing something which was perfectly legal in the US but which affected UK citizens and was against their laws???

I don't know ... if they were sending out spam, I'd prefer that they be quickly extradited to whatever third-world country still practices breaking-at-the-wheel.

Reminds me of C++ programmers

[ColonelPanic (138077)]

... because C++ programmers make "friends" solely for the purpose of exposing their "private" parts to them.