Two Amercian men could be the first to face criminal charges related to spam after they allegedly crashed a company's computer system by re-routing tens of thousands of unsolicited emails through its servers.
Michael Persaud and Frank Kriticos, both of the San Diego area, are charged with three counts of disrupting computer services, doing so to cause injury and illegally using someone else's domain name.
They could face up to four years and four months in jail if convicted.
"Since law enforcement hasn't been responding to this type of crime, spammers have been operating with impunity," said District Attorney Michael Groch, who's prosecuting the case, adding that he hasn't come across any other people facing criminal charges related to spam.
The phenomenon of spam has become one of the Internet's biggest blemishes. Consumer groups, privacy advocates and Internet service providers have vocally rallied against spammers, saying the email pitches overload people's in-boxes and companies' ISP networks.
Spam wars
Internet companies that offer email have spent considerable resources to fight the problem. Giants such as AOL Time Warner's America Online have taken suspected spammers to court on civil charges, and many states have enacted legislation to fight the proliferation of spam. But some early legal tests have gone against those measures.
Under the state's anti-spamming law, it is legal to transmit spam in California if the sender puts "ADV:" in the subject line and gives the recipient a real option of unsubscribing. Failing to do so constitutes a misdemeanor. However, for the most part, those laws have not been enforced.
Persaud and Kriticos are facing charges for allegedly using computers owned by Veritools, a company that creates debugging software, to carry out their task.
Law enforcement was first notified of the spamming incident in December, when Veritools' system crashed after tens of thousands of emails were re-routed through its servers.
Hired hands
According to prosecutors, the pair was hired by a refinancing company to find people who would be interested in its services. The emails, which offered refinancing services, appeared to come from a Veritools affiliate, and return messages from angry spam recipients also put a strain on the company's computer system, according to prosecutors.
If they are found guilty, it would be at least the second criminal conviction for a spammer in the United States. In December, a man pleaded guilty in New York to sending millions of porn and get-rich-quick spam.
Meanwhile, several US federal lawmakers are pushing new legislation that would outlaw certain junk email practices.
