Hellbuster
05-13-2006, 04:42 AM
People who bombard innocent victims with a blizzard of unsolicited "spam" e-mails are breaking the law and could face up to five years in jail, London's High Court rules.
In a test case that puts spammers in the same league as people who spread computer viruses, two judges said that these cyber-spammers could be prosecuted under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act.
The ruling came as the two overturned a district judge's previous ruling that 18-year-old David Lennon had no case to answer after being accused of using a computer program to send five million e-mails to a firm which had fired him.
The judges said that while a computer user might consent to being sent some e-mails, that consent did not extend to receiving a barrage of such messages.
Ruling that the extent of consent should be decided on a case-by-case basis, the judges said it plainly did not cover e-mails sent intentionally to jam a receiving computer rather than for the purpose of communication.
The case must now go back to the original court to be reconsidered
In a test case that puts spammers in the same league as people who spread computer viruses, two judges said that these cyber-spammers could be prosecuted under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act.
The ruling came as the two overturned a district judge's previous ruling that 18-year-old David Lennon had no case to answer after being accused of using a computer program to send five million e-mails to a firm which had fired him.
The judges said that while a computer user might consent to being sent some e-mails, that consent did not extend to receiving a barrage of such messages.
Ruling that the extent of consent should be decided on a case-by-case basis, the judges said it plainly did not cover e-mails sent intentionally to jam a receiving computer rather than for the purpose of communication.
The case must now go back to the original court to be reconsidered