re: if the spammer proves that but is found guilty of the charges then they should serve a mandatory life sentence Habitual drunk drivers who cause fatal accidents, as well as rapists, child molesters and other who commit crimes that physical harm others get a few years in prison in many cases. In some cases the sentence is merely probation. A "mandatory life sentence" for a spammer? How about we figure out to "reasonably" punish those that destroy lives before we lock up those that have inconvenienced us? re: there was no monetary gain If they'll get life for no monetary gain, what's the punishment if they made money - and already benefited from a monetary gain so it can not be paid back?

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I don't know where you are from but here a drunk driver involved in any fatality may not get life but you can bet he/she will be too old to drive when they get out. and forget about child molesters and rapists they don't get back out! Now to clarify...in most cases life sentences are just about 25 years unless specified that it be done without possibility of parole... The purpose to make the sentence high serves two points as well 1) most diffident deterrent 2) power for a major roll over on others that are involved.

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Be careful. The Government is looking for reasons and the means to control the Internet. Once they get their foot in the door there will no stopping "The protection from ourselves" they will offer. I don't mean to be the Devils advocate on this but how much junk email do you get in a week? 25? Now count up how much junk mail your Postman puts in your letter box 25???. If more than that STOP giving out you email address to every Tom ,Dick and Harry. So if your going to sue or imprison the sender of electronic spam, don' you think the Postal Service should also suffer the same consequences? I don't mind the advertisements, it's the scams and virus infected crap that rubs me the wrong way. And yet, I don't want any Government or Government sanctioned agency to over see those problems. The Internet should govern itself. .

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re: don't know where you are from but here a drunk driver involved in any fatality may not get life but you can bet he/she will be too old to drive when they get out. Just one recent example: 30 days in jail, 2 years of house arrest and 8 years probation. http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/31432... re: and forget about child molesters and rapists they don't get back out! They do where I come from. This situation supposedly had "mitigating" circumstances, but it's not uncommon to hear of similar situations. http://www.ldjackson.net/oklahoma-n... One site I found said the average sentence for rape in the US is 16 years, of which the majority must be served. Convict a 20 year old, give him the average sentence and he could be out celebrating his 30th birthday by committing the same crime. That's why I find a life sentence for a spammer just a bit extreme.

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I don't mean to be the Devils advocate on this but how much junk email do you get in a week? 25? I work for a university with a public email address book. I probably get over 100 spam emails a day. Our spam filter catches about 50% of them, on a good day. The rest I have to laboriously attend to myself by creating new rules in the spam filter to block the new ones as they come up. I would hate to calculate how many hours a year I have to spend dealing with spam. Multiply my time by the total number of staff where I work and I suspect it's an awful expensive problem. While I don't honestly think they should be punished more than a child molester, rapist or drunk driver........I do believe it should cost them enough to make them never want to do it again.

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Well said Curt, I can't really imagine the gain in spamming nowadays. I see, I don't recognise and I delete. Isn't this the norm with the average PC user? The financial gain must be minimal. I do realise there can be a deeper, more malicious intent with spam... but in all it seems so.... passe ʇxǝʇ uʍop ǝpısdn

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It is practically impossible to find and prosecute most spammers, but what I don't understand is why the law allows credit card companies to process transactions for the spammers. If we took that away, the spammers will not be able to make any money.

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I'd welcome the ability to sue spammers. The enforceability would be a challenge.

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One of the issues about spammers is that their income may not be actually derived as advertisement but will more than likely come from legitamate email addresses. I don't know what it is now but a few years back, a single CD filled with verifiable (see note) email addresses could bring in over a $1,000,000 (million) from a top line advertisement agency. Multiply that by how many other agencies also purchase the information and you can see where the money comes from. Now the ad agencies sell this to their prospective customers as a legitimate customer base for all their product advertisements and news polls and you can see where the money trail leads.. So what happens here is the spammer creates advertisements to link to a legal business and sends out the emails. The point is that he doesn't care whether you link the ad as all he wants is your email address. So on the ads is a return receipt request and for every person that opens the email and allows a return receipt request, the spammer has been given proof that the email is legit. ( actually deleting the email can also send the return request) So he gathers as many as he can from his spamming and with the return receipt he is able to sell this information to advertisement agencies the world over. That is just one way of acquiring legit emails. Another way is to actually buy a membership list from websites, who promise not to sell your private information to anyone except in certain instances to better enhance you web experience of to partnerships etc...etc. all of which is in the privacy rules that most people don't bother to even read. The problem is that advertisements use a anti spammer code of conduct which is basically self regulating. This code says they do not send out emails to anyone other than those that request it... Agin this is the partnership agreements that are linked from website to website and from business to business. If they get your name and email from a partner then you request to be sent information from all their partners as well. Even anti spamming program software designers are in on this scam as well. Don't believe me then read the acceptance check box the next time you install an anti-virus or clean-up utillity/application/program and see if it doesn't support what I just said.

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re: "So on the ads is a return receipt request and for every person that opens the email and allows a return receipt request..." Who allows a return receipt be sent to a spammer? I don't even allow a return receipt when someone I know requests a Return Receipt. By default. my email app is set to "Never send a return receipt".

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I agree about 101% with DerbyDad...protect yourself first. But; this thread is about suing spammers; not about protecting your email. Yahoo, Hotmail(MSN), Gmail, etc does a pretty good job at that. Those are the folks who need to track down and prosecute spammers. They have the resources (cash) and their efforts would be most appreciated by me and you. Let them stand the bill and put a monetary hurt on spammers. I'm not willing to pay for a spammers jailing costs....that's money running in the wrong direction. Skip

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SkipCox, First, thanks for agreeing with me. Second, re: Yahoo, Hotmail(MSN), Gmail, etc...have the resources (cash)...Let them stand the bill...I'm not willing to pay for a spammers jailing costs Think profit margins. If Yahoo, Hotmail(MSN), Gmail, etc. spend their cash on spam-prevention, their profit margins will go down, their stock holders will complain, they will raise the costs of the "legitimate" ads that garner them their revenue and the advertisers will raise the price of their products to cover the additional cost and keep their profit margins where they were. In the end, you'll pay for it anyway.

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well think about this as well. A few years back Yahoo bought out Claria which was previously known as Gator (world renown spamming company) and everyone rejoiced thinking that it would put a big dent in to the spamming community. Boy was that a mistake. Yahoo turned right around and used gator applications and software on their own tool bar so as to spamm their own customers. They went as far as allowing an opt out section, but this only allowed you to opt out on other third party information thief's and did not allow for you to opt out of yahoo's information gathering. To close out the yahoo data miner you had to re open the toolbar and physically uncheck the boxes. Prettty crafty idea there to allow you to think that you had opted out of all third party data mining. With this as actual fact the money yahoo spent on advertisements exceed that of AOL for two years and yet people still swear by yahoo and all the good they do for them with their anti spamming tools and email safety programming... http://www.pcpitstop.com/gator/Yaho...

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