Virginia, home to America Online Inc. and the MAE-East Internet traffic hub, has become the second U.S. state to make sending fraudulent bulk e-mail a crime.
But it remains unclear whether the anti-spam law passed unanimously by the state legislature represents a true sea change in the way Internet service providers deal with unscrupulous bulk e-mail companies, experts said.
The law, which would make it a felony for a bulk e-mailer to commit a "malicious act" that results in more than $2,500 in damage to a computer network, is similar to a measure enacted in California last year. Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore has said he plans to sign the bill.
Unlike the many civil anti-spam laws on the books in states such as Washington -- laws which make spamming grounds for a lawsuit -- enforcing criminal laws is another story, according to one observer. Police are likely to find it very difficult to track down the people responsible for bulk mailings, said John Mozena, spokesman for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE).
"It remains to be seen how effective law enforcement can be" in an environment where spammers continually move around, changing physical addresses and re-routing mail through servers far and wide, Mozena said.
Ultimately, CAUCE would like to see a federal anti-spam law growing out of the existing junk-fax law, he said, but added that in the meantime, the group supports the Virginia bill and other anti-spam efforts at the state level.
"This will make it easier for companies like AOL to sue, and hopefully will discourage spammers," Mozena said. "In the end, that means the big winners are Internet users."
AOL, too, supports the law, which also provides civil penalties of up to $25,000 per day for spammers who cause computer systems to crash.
"The big thing about this law is that it very clearly speaks to the issue of forging headers and domains," AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato said. The company hopes the criminal and civil penalties provided under the law will discourage spammers and help it avoid future lawsuits, he said.
Freedom to spam?
The American Civil Liberties Union, however, said Wednesday it opposes the measure, calling it a violation of advertisers' free speech rights.
"We believe the Internet is too young and spam is not enough of a problem yet for the government to be getting involved," said Kent Willis, a spokesman for the Virginia chapter of the ACLU. "There may be technological tools that can control the nuisance that spam has become," he said.
Willis added that laws like the Virginia measure don't take into account that some Netizens "actually enjoy getting junk mail."
"Before the government restricts communications, it should study very carefully how broad those restrictions are," he said.
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