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

We need an equivalent law here in the US.

New commercial

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

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

E360INSIGHT, are you listening?

Why don't you go to the UK and file your bogus lawsuit against Spamhaus now?

Jail Time

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:Jail Time

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:Jail Time

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.

Yep

We can't fill 'em fast enough. No room for these [news24.com] guys though.

A good start

I'm a firm believer in some sort of nightmare medieval punishment for spammers, preferably involving red hot iron applied to tender parts in proportion to the number of spam emails sent. This is not there yet but is a good start.

The price of spam lists

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

THE FALCONER!

Lord Falconer, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, said. "People have a right to have their privacy protected from those who would deliberately misuse it and I believe the introduction of custodial penalties will be an effective deterrent to those who seek to procure or wilfully abuse personal data."

Ok, so I'll avoid making a joke about "the falconer" here, but I do have a question. 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? Also, what count as deliberately misusing it? Last I checked it seems like e-mail addresses were made to be spammed. Go after people spamming and not someone giving out an e-mail address.

Re:THE FALCONER!

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

What about people who inadvertantly give away

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.

If only it was inforceable.

I get tonnes of junk mail through my door even though I always check/uncheck the don't pass my details on to someone else box.

Next time I move house I'm going to register all my bills in different names so that I know exactly who's passing my details on.

Strongbad is in trouble

{Cut to Strong Bad and Bubs standing at the stick, facing away from each other. Strong Bad has a CD labeled "The Goods", Bubs has a bag of cash labeled "The Payoff".}

STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Or if I'm strapped for cash, I'll sell the email addresses to Bubs for use in his free weekly spamvertisements.

{Strong Bad drops the CD}

STRONG BAD: Oops! Lookit that! I dropped a CD of five-thousand email addresses!

{Bubs throws the bag of money on the ground}

BUBS: Whoops! I dropped a quarter for each one!

http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/unused_emails

Ha!

GB is coming under flack for overcrowded jails - to the point that they are letting Paedophile walk - they are not going to lock up spammers. FROM BBC NEWS: Paedophile escapes prison A man who downloaded dozens of child porn pictures won't be sent to prison - partly because of overcrowding in England and Wales. Derek Williams was given a suspended sentence. Judges have been told to only put the most dangerous criminals behind bars for the time being. A Downing Street spokesman said advice was sent to judges on sentencing but only as a reminder of the guidelines.

What happened to punishment fitting the crime?

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

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.

Private data = Private parts

Your private data is like your private parts. No one has the right to expose them without your permission.

I just hope it's not

Blue collar prison with conjugal visits. People like this need to go to federal prison, where they might be complimented on the beauty of their mouth.

This law will never stick

Too many problems.

Does this apply to recruiters and other people whose job it is to keep track of people? They pass people's contact information around all the time.

How about social networking site operators, whose site leaks contact information to third parties?

How about corporate officers of information broker firms like Acxiom? These companies never have permission directly from the people whose information they have.

The information broker firms are also the reason why this sort of law would never even pass in the US.

Where's...

The champagne? We need to celebrate!

Bcc as well?

.... and it should be community service for those who don't Bcc.

Are People The Only Ones?

Just a thought; But would this apply to Credit Card Company's, Lending Institutions, or Credit Rating Company's? More identities have been "published" from these types of businesses than any other, to date. I know my credit rating may be affected by this posting.

But the FREE MARKET!

This is nothing but GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE in the FREE MARKET! If the governement would just stay away, everything would work out for the BEST for the CUSTOMER!

Doubtful offenders would ever see inside of jail

Considering the recent news [bbc.co.uk] that known pedophiles aren't being sent to prison, what are the odds that spammers end up in the slammer?

wait a minute...

IANAB (I am not a Brit), but wouldn't that be "gaoling" them?

so now i just delete less, but....

what about all this junk mail i get in my actual mailbox every day? sure spam is annoying, however this physical mail is just as annoying, if not more since i can't just "delete" these credit card offers (half of which spell my name the same horrible spelling so i know they're selling that name around like crazy) but the government lets that slide since they are making money off of it. they dont make money off of e-mails flying around. why not do something about this REAL junk mail that's actually a harm to our physical environment?

No jail sentence will be handed down - Policy

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.

Not practical in the U.S....

...Our prisons are so crowded with potheads we're making room by releasing murderers and rapists early.

Maybe the penalty should have been 10x the amount you earned selling the data... That way you discourage the behavior (forfeiture of all profits times 10) while not wasting prison space that needs to be saved to protect the rest of us from violent offenders.

Never happen...

If the UK is already releasing kiddie pornsters to the street instead of sending them to jail because the jails are already full -- what chance do you think any spam-facilitator is ever going to see the inside of a cell?

Re:FROSTY PISTOLIERS!

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.