In yesterday's Wired News Circuit Court column "Free the Spam King" I take on the question of whether criminal prosecutions will stop spam, or are even fair. This one has engendered a lot of hate mail. It seems people really, really hate spam.
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Are Criminal Sanctions the Answer to Spam?
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In my view any kind of criminal prosecutions would be extremely warranted however would not have any noticeable impact on the amount of spam constantly being bombarded across the Internet.
I say warranted as in my experience, spammers are fully aware of the consequences of their actions however simply do not care and are in the business simply for the money.
I do not believe it would have any effect as there are simply too many people taking part in the act of spamming. Criminal prosecutions would be very unrealistic against these people simply due to the large extent of their numbers.
A more realistic way of tackling spamming is for ISP's and webhosts to get involved and begin banning these people. The emails CAN be traced to individuals, but does anyone bother?
A more realistic way of tackling spamming is for ISP's and webhosts to get involved and begin banning these people. The emails CAN be traced to individuals, but does anyone bother?
boediger
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