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Laura Atkins, president of the San Francisco-based SpamCon Foundation, said that spammers might be fearful enough of the long jail sentences that the Maryland law prescribes, especially if the state launches a high-profile case.
"There are a number of spammers who have ... fines hanging over their heads, but they're still spamming. I believe if we get a couple arrests with perp walks, that that will have an effect," she said.
Anti-spam advocates were skeptical of the Can-Spam law when it went into effect in January because it overrode laws in California and Washington that allowed people to sue spammers for sending deceptive mail. Can-Spam preempts most state spam laws, but expressly allows laws that target deceptive or fraudulent spam messages. The federal law was designed to leave the Virginia statute intact, and the Maryland bill was written to comply with the federal standards.
Even though the federal anti-spam law took effect on Jan. 1, the states have largely taken the lead in cracking down on spammers.
Virginia garnered attention last December when state prosecutors charged two North Carolina men with violating the spam law that Gov. Mark Warner (D) signed last year. In New York, Howard Carmack, known as the "Buffalo Spammer," today was sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison for using stolen identities to send out 825 million spam messages. He was convicted under New York's new identity theft law.
The government has used the national law twice. The Justice Department in April charged four people in West Bloomfield, Mich., with sending deceptive spam. The Federal Trade Commission charged Australian company Global Web Promotions Pty with violating the law as well, bringing a case against the company with the help of Australian and New Zealand authorities.
Internet service providers Earthlink, America Online, Microsoft Corp., and Yahoo Inc. filed six lawsuits against bulk e-mailers last March under the Can-Spam law.
The FTC meanwhile is considering whether it should institute a national no-spam list for e-mail users that would be similar to the successful do-not-call list. The commission last week began requiring the sexually explicit spam be clearly labeled.
