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Sunday, September 14, 2008

A conviction under a broad anti spam law can set you free

I won't try to act like previously convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes has not been put through the ringer. He has made it to the charts as an example of what not to do. Jeremy was quoted in 2005 telling the courts "I can gurantee to the court that I will not be involved in the email marketing business again". Jeremy's net worth from spam is suspected to be $24 million. Prosecutors were able to show that he received 10,000credit card orders ($40 per order)in one month. Personally I don't pay much attention to spamming and the anti spam law. But when I picked up my news paper yesterday and read the small article I had to blog it. I make every attempt not to want more money so bad that I succome to the "dark side".

It had been reported that Mr. Jaynes made upwards of $750k per month on what was quoted as a less than safisticated network of operations which made it easy for the cybercrime police to find him. More sophisticated spammers use viruses that route their traffic through unsuspecting computers all over the world. On the other hand, it was almost impossible for victums of Jeremys' emails to track him down. Using untracable routing information and false company names a victum could chalk it up as a lose. Mr. Jaynes solicited everything from porn, penny stocks, work at home businesses that promised payouts, FedEx refund processors and other scams.

I have not found much on what the IRS has to say about what their cut of Mr. Jaynes' earnings should be. Its been said that the IRS is understaffed but when your high profile all it takes is for someone to give you're earnings special attention.

Back in 2004 Jeremy origionally received a 9 year prison sentence but it was overturned in 2008 because the procecution didn't prove that all specifics of the law were violated. The defense argued for one that the sentence was too severe and that the charges violated his first amendment right. Basically, because the law is broad the appelet court overturned the origional sentence. More than likely the procecution will bring him up on lessor more specific charges under the law. Jeremy will more than likely be banned from any online advertising but I wonder how it would be enforced?

The world is full of people that want to get rich quick. What these people do not realize is that they make other people get quick riches because they are willing to pull out their credit cards for snake oil advertisments. Also, when your promised riches for only $40 some may not see it as a big lose. I don't want to sound like I'm blamming the victum who although not criminally responsible they must take on some of the blame.

Be careful out their people.

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