Jeffery Goodin faces 101 years in prison for spam
A report on the Mercury News revealed that a man from Los Angeles has been criminally convicted of spam e-mailing and is the first person to be convicted of such a crime in the U.S. Forty-five year old Jeffery Goodin was found guilty of running a running scam that fooled users into giving out personal information. E-mails that Goodin sent out made users believe that they were cooperating with a legitimate business when in fact they were not.
Goodin is convicted under the 2003 CAN-SPAM Act, which makes it illegal for marketers to send out false or misleading information to users. Goodin sent millions of these e-mails over the course of his spam career. The CAN-SPAM Act also dictates that legitimate e-mails such as newsletters and advertisements must feature a way for recipients to remove themselves from the mailing list.
Prosecutors provided evidence to a jury that Goodin also compromised AOL accounts to send out e-mail to users. Goodin's spam made it appear like his e-mails were being sent from AOL's billing department and told users that if they did not update their information via a website, their accounts would be closed.
Goodin is being convicted of spam, and ten other counts that include wire fraud and unauthorized access to AOL accounts and company trademarks for illegal purposes. He is to be sentenced on June 11th of 2007 and faces up to 101 years in prison.
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