Virginia Arrests Man for Spam Email Under New Law
DULLES, Va. (Reuters) - Virginia authorities said on Thursday they had arrested and charged a North Carolina man for sending "spam" e-mail in the first use of a new state law that could bring penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Jeremy Jaynes had been arrested earlier Thursday in Raleigh, N.C., on four counts of using fraudulent means to transmit spam.
Kilgore told a news conference that officials were in negotiations for the surrender of a second man, Richard Rutowski, on the same charges.
Jaynes was charged with violating limits on the number of messages a marketer can send and falsifying routing information, both illegal under the Virginia law that carries penalties of 1-5 years in prison on each count.
Although based in North Carolina, Virginia is asserting jurisdiction over Jaynes because he sent messages through computers located in the state.
Roughly 50 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through Virginia, home to big Internet companies like Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX) American Online unit and MCI (WCOEQ.PK).
Spam has grown from a minor annoyance to a major threat to the stability of the Internet, experts say, and now makes up more than half of all e-mail traffic, according to several surveys.
"These criminals are harming businesses in Virginia, and that concerns us," Kilgore told the news conference at AOL headquarters in Dulles, Va.
DULLES, Va. (Reuters) - Virginia authorities said on Thursday they had arrested and charged a North Carolina man for sending "spam" e-mail in the first use of a new state law that could bring penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore said Jeremy Jaynes had been arrested earlier Thursday in Raleigh, N.C., on four counts of using fraudulent means to transmit spam.
Kilgore told a news conference that officials were in negotiations for the surrender of a second man, Richard Rutowski, on the same charges.
Jaynes was charged with violating limits on the number of messages a marketer can send and falsifying routing information, both illegal under the Virginia law that carries penalties of 1-5 years in prison on each count.
Although based in North Carolina, Virginia is asserting jurisdiction over Jaynes because he sent messages through computers located in the state.
Roughly 50 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through Virginia, home to big Internet companies like Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX) American Online unit and MCI (WCOEQ.PK).
Spam has grown from a minor annoyance to a major threat to the stability of the Internet, experts say, and now makes up more than half of all e-mail traffic, according to several surveys.
"These criminals are harming businesses in Virginia, and that concerns us," Kilgore told the news conference at AOL headquarters in Dulles, Va.
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