Jail for Selling Email Lists to Spammers 172
amigoro writes "UK will start jailing the people who trade in email addresses, or any other personal data. The current Data Protection Act only fines people who do that, but the money one can make from trading in personal information was far higher than the measly GBP 5000 one had to pay if caught. The new regulations will result in a two year prison sentence for violating the Act."
US (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahh, but until then ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
How about $10 for mikemol@gmail.com?
Oh...wait...that's in my comment header."
Good thing you spent the time obfuscating your email originally, just to go and type it out for the email crawlers... oops.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Especially given that the existing law allows for a fine "per incident". Which could mean that selling 2,000 emails would equate to up to one million pounds of fine. There can't be many email addresses which will sell in the several thousand pounds range.
Doubt the title "UK to jail privacy violators" means that Blair and co will be heading to jail soon over their crackpo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
New commercial (Score:5, Funny)
Legal bills: GBP 2000
Your cellmate Bubba finding out that you're the one behind him getting all those Nigerian emails: Priceless
Re: (Score:2)
Justice!
Re:New commercial (Score:5, Funny)
Wont work - retarded civil servants (Score:3, Informative)
Like your humour
but the uk's information commissioners office is far too lame to do anything about it. - explain why evil empire Microsoft sued the Milton Keynes spammer [freethcartwright.com] ,and not the civil service.
Blair and Bush masters of FUD '15 - minutes before you die'. Final thought: Imformation commisioners office (UK) could not party in brewery.
Re: (Score:2)
E360INSIGHT, are you listening? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This raises an interesting point .... how loudly would the American government be screaming if a US citizen was arrested in Britain for doing something which was perfectly legal in the US but which affected UK citizens and was against their laws???
I bet people would scream bloody murder about jurisdiction and how wrong it is to detain American citizens.
I would like to see a test case like that.
Cheers
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I don't know
Jail Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I like the idea of the fine being inline with the crime. Instead of a fixed fine where the amount becomes a cost of doing business, why do they not move to a sliding scale. For example, each person who's e-mail they sold would receive the amount paid for the list. So if the list is 100 e-mails and the person caught was selling the list for 1$ then the fine would be equal to 1$ x 100 and that $ would be sent to the people who's names are on the list.
W
Re: (Score:2)
I like the idea of making restitution to the victims, but I don't think your plan would work. You can't send money by email, so you'd have to somehow find out the names and addresses of the owners. And how do you do that? By sending out mass emails telling people that they can get a check for $1.00 if they provide their name and address? How many responses do you think you'd get? And keep in m
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
actually, it's worse than that, you have to not only remove the financial incentive, you also have to remove the PERCEIVED financial incentive. the former is actually not that hard, and in some cases is already accomplished. the big problem is that even if people aren't able to make a penny off of spam you will still have people who THINK they can make money off it, and that will continue to cause people to try.
what is needed mo
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The creeps making tons of money from the prison industry believe we should feed them even faster. This isn't about punishment, much less rehabilitation. Profit motive is driving it. And the taste of revenge is sweet indeed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Jail time is something that people can't miss.
I agree that two years should be a
Re: (Score:2)
Fines don't work if the benefit of breaking the law exceeds the possible fine. Probation is the threat of being thrown in jail for getting caught again, which is slightly more legally binding than "don't do it again or I'll tell you not to do it again in a more stern voice". I get the impression that the kind of people that sell email adresses would consider the publ
Re: (Score:2)
Am I the only one sick and tired of this method of trivializing crimes? "Oh, it's non-violent, I guess it's not so bad." You really think all violent crimes are worse than all non-violent crimes? Then tell ya what: slapping me in the face is a violent crime. I would gladly be slapped in the face in return for just 10% of the costs a spammer imposes on the rest of us.
Re:Jail Time (Score:4, Interesting)
And how many years can it take to recover from having your credit history trashed, from losing your sensitive job because you appear to be financially wreckless or in debt, or from having to rebuild your reputation when someone sends around child pr0n links/content or stock-pumping scams that appear to be coming from you?
If you performed a "violent crime" that resulted in more or less the same consequences (wrecking someone's house or career), that's somehow worse, for you, than some other action that results in the same thing, long-term? How about when the person doing it is doing it to thousands of people at the same time?
spending it in jail doesn't help society very much
Other than the whole "he can't do any more of it while he's in prison" aspect, right?
maybe your email address along with your crime made publicly known
Oh no! Not public disclosure of your e-mail address! That's really some pretty serious stuff you're talking, there. No one who steals information, spreads around fraudulant messages, and is willing to take YOUR money or credibility for their own use would ever... just change e-mail addresses. These people are beyond shame. Naming them publicly does nothing, but jail time completely prevents them from any of these activities while they're locked up.
Regardless, I still think we are too quick to just throw people in jail and forget about them.
Forget about them? We have to feed them, provide medical and legal care, and 24 months later (in the example cited), administer their release. I can't imagine that you're thinking someone doing a 24-month stint is somehow going to wind up there for years longer because someone forgot that their sentence was up. Please.
It sounds more like what you're really lobbying for is harsher sentences for violent criminals. Because you can't truly be thinking that life-wrecking scam artists that cost the world's economy untold billions in (choose your currency) and irretrievably lost time are the same as someone didn't renew their dog license, or was caught distilling their own grappa in the basement.
Re: (Score:2)
Except for the fact that if he's set up some kind of corporation or even just left an automated email harvester and credit card charge system running in some closet somewhere, he most certainly can.
Re: (Score:2)
If the corporation he's running is the vehicle through which he's committing his crimes, that wouldn't still be operating anyway. If you mean that he might have accomplices that weren't caught, that's another matter - though it's usually pretty easy to follow the trail.
As for card harvesting, etc... he can'
Re: (Score:2)
three words : off-shore accounts
Re: (Score:2)
WTF are you talking about? Because *we're* talking about sending people to jail for selling e-mail addresses. In no way does that financially wreck someone's life or prop up any of your o
Re: (Score:2)
Who do you suppose is buying them? The wider spam-using "industry" is responsible for spreading around malware of every sort, links to sites that carry all sorts of toxic payloads, and encouragement to land on phishing sites set up expressly to steal sensitive personal information from people who will find their bank accounts drained or $10,000 in consumer electronics bought in their name.
When someone illegally raids a private database and sells that information to people who a
Re: (Score:2)
So fine the end users. You know -- the people actually doing that stuff? "Enabling" is a half-assed argument, because not all of the people sending SPAM are the same people setting up phishing sites or nigerian e-mail scams, and throwing them all into the same group is either ignorant, lazy, or both -- neither of which are characteristics a criminal justice system should have.
Feeling sorry for the people that seek out ways to support and do business with them through the
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
On the contrary. Two years is actually a very light sentence for something that impacts society as severly as this, and society benefits greatly during that two year period, because imprisoning a spammer brings huge benefits to society. It's a cheap and effective way to improve the lives of millions of people.
There really aren't that many spammers in the world. It may not seem
Re:Jail Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, waking up in the morning and finding 70 emails, of which 65 are spam is pretty damn annoying, but it's nothing in the bigger picture. You need to seriously take a step back from the computer and get some fucking perspective.
Er, can be (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Firstly the inconvenience in that situation would be felt by the person whose life would potentially be saved, meaning if they chose life over inconvenience that's entirely up to them. Unless you're saying murder victims are given the choice about whether to be murdered or to get spam for the rest of their life then sorry but you're talking bollocks.
Secondly, I'm not saying spammers shouldn't be punished or that they shouldn't be imprisoned even. All I'm s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, can we get back to lynching spammers?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The thing that needs to be pointed out to the poster is that they are not additive like that. For instance, how many slaps equates to getting your hands chopped off? For some people, there may actually be a number, but for most of us, epically programmers, there just isn't.
The grandparent may not realize that
Probably "up to two year" (Score:2)
What is the maximum penalty for breaking into a computer, stealing information, and in the process leave the computer unusable?
And I strongly disagree with the sentiment often heard here on
Re: (Score:2)
There will be no jail time (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you read any british newspapers at the moment, you will see our prisons are overflowing, so people are not getting anything like maximum sentences at the moment.
Re: (Score:2)
This is death to any company with more than a handful of customers.
For a stock listed company this won't only kill it it'll result in the CEO being sued by the shareholders as well.
Who needs jailtime?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Gates could afford it. But for most of us, jail starts to look pretty good.
I just hope the UK has equally tough spammer laws.
This [blogspot.com] is what i think of jail and poverty.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't care how non-violent a crime is, if you're a menace to society then you should be removed from society.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right. Why not just shoot them, instead?
...laura
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably more of a reason for reviewing exactly who is jailed in general.
Yes, I know it's suppose to be a deterrent, but I think a better deterrent would be a much larger fine, probation, and maybe your email address along with your crime made publicly known.
Re: (Score:2)
Second, compared to our American gulags most British prisons are practically country clubs. They're slowly getting worse in the UK, but they are still better.
Re: (Score:2)
The main difference is where you have a life sentence with a recommended minimum term. There, once you have served the recommended minimum term, the parole board (in England) or the equivalent elsewhere, carries out an assessment to see if you are still a risk to the public, and only release you if
Re: (Score:2)
Which was exactly my original point...
A good start (Score:2)
How about this? (Score:2)
Ya know, it would have stocks and some sort of reciprocating er...machinery
or....maybe not
The price of spam lists (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What about people who inadvertantly give away (Score:4, Insightful)
Should the offender be tracked and punished? After all, (s)he gave away my personal info without my consent. Not intentionally and didn't make any money, but its an interesting question nonetheless.
Re: (Score:2)
The person with the harvester could be breaking the law by not taking sufficient precautions with the information, but that gets messier...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This, like a parking ticket, isn't a felony crime that might stop you from getting a job.
What it could do is make people think about getting some education about their PCs, or at least get someone who can maintain
Re: (Score:2)
The person with spyware on their computer has the ability to stop that kind of crime from happening. That's the definition of negligence - "the failure to exercise that degree of care that, in the circumstances, the law requires for the protection of other persons or those interests of other persons that may be injuriously affected by the want of such care." (from dictionary.com) Granted, no such law actually exists (yet) - but it should.
If you think a PC i
If only it was inforceable. (Score:2)
Next time I move house I'm going to register all my bills in different names so that I know exactly who's passing my details on.
Re: (Score:2)
I tried that, but I changed the middle initial, E. for the electricity company, X. for American Express, and so on. It was fascinating. Buy a pair of binoculars, find yourself getting life insurance offers. Leave your name with a chocolatier at a food show, and get catalogs from a company making high-end mountain bikes. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and with the vast majority I never would have guessed who'd sold the name without that tell-tale little breadcrumb. (And that junk came, of course, a
Strongbad is in trouble (Score:2)
STRONG BAD: {voiceover} Or if I'm strapped for cash, I'll sell the email addresses to Bubs for use in his free weekly spamvertisements.
{Strong Bad drops the CD}
STRONG BAD: Oops! Lookit that! I dropped a CD of five-thousand email addresses!
{Bubs throws the bag of money on the ground}
BUBS: Whoops! I dropped a quarter for each one!
http://www
What happened to punishment fitting the crime? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I wouldn't be opposed to say a sentence that put them in jail every weekend for two years. They can still try to earn an honest buck, and get a solid reminder of what they did wrong.
Punishment fitting the crime not possible here (Score:5, Informative)
I really hate the pervasive meme that a crime is less of an issue if the damage is spread out over many victims, rather than concentrated on a few individuals. The economic damage done by a single large scale spam attack is large enough to fund several life saving operations. Just because you can't name the person who died doesn't make the crime any less severe.
And yes, the two years jail time is the upper limit, reserved to the worst cases. Most offenders will get far less than that, and first time offenders will most likely not even face jail time.
Re: (Score:2)
This law will never stick (Score:2)
Does this apply to recruiters and other people whose job it is to keep track of people? They pass people's contact information around all the time.
How about social networking site operators, whose site leaks contact information to third parties?
How about corporate officers of information broker firms like Acxiom? These companies never have permission directly from the people whose information they have.
The information broker firms are also the reason why this sort of law would never even p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
^UK^EU
Data protection laws are, AFAIK, reasonably uniform across the EU. And there are restrictions on what data you can transfer out, although there are plenty of loopholes in the transfer rules.
Are People The Only Ones? (Score:2)
But the FREE MARKET! (Score:2)
wait a minute... (Score:2)
No jail sentence will be handed down - Policy (Score:4, Insightful)
While the threat of jail is still there, the chances of anyone actually getting a custodial sentence for such crimes is virtually non-existant, when even major crime gets punished with fines and community service.
So, yet another UK law that looks good on paper, but will be as effective as the USA CAN-SPAM laws.
Not practical in the U.S.... (Score:2)
Maybe the penalty should have been 10x the amount you earned selling the data... That way you discourage the behavior (forfeiture of all profits times 10) while not wasting prison space that needs to be saved to protect the rest of us from violent offenders.
Re: (Score:2)
That would
a) get you tax revenue on the 2nd most popular intoxicant in the country
b) cut off a huge part of the funding of organised crime
c) lead to a dramatic reduction in burglaries and muggings, since addicts wouldn't have to commit crime to feed their habits
and, most importantly, mean you have plenty of free jail space to detain spammers at Her Majesty's pleasure. Not sure if Liz has an email address, but if she does, I'm sure i
Re: (Score:2)
Totally agree... I just don't know how that will happen anytime soon. So many "Good Christians" in the "lock 'em all up" camp that you can't imagine it happening in too many states in the U.S. right now. Alaska has the closest thing with de facto legalization--you can have some for personal use, and can grow for personal use.
Re:THE FALCONER! (Score:4, Informative)
-- yes
what count as deliberately misusing it?
-- any use other than the purpose for which I gave it to you
Go after people spamming and not someone giving out an e-mail address.
-- the people giving out the email address are just as guilty as the people sending spam
Re: your sig (Score:2)
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Heh, you're a bit behind the times aint ya? 21st century research has shown that introns contain the "control logic" of expression. Proteins are the building blocks of life, but the introns contain sequences that are transcribed into mRNA that interacts with protein expression to inhibit or promote. In the 20th century, the study of molecular biology could be liked to a 1930s plane engineer looking at a Boeing 747.. they would recognise many important things: the shape of the wings, the thickness and co
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
It's actually worse then that. I feel that my sanitary and healthy living conditions are polluted by some low life scumbag who's getting rich quick by shitting into the communal water supply.
This is metaphorically speaking, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Is there a legitimate use for providing the email addresses to others in bulk? When people ask me for an email address, it's usually for a mutual acquaintance. I've never had any reason to provide every email address of everyone I've ever seen, plus
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm all for prosecuting people who sell personal information. I do system architecture design for a marketing organization in a large bank. I've seen the kind of companies and people who are in the business of selling information "l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Any database of personally identifiable information falls under the data protection act, and that comes with a whole host of requirements. The data has to be collected with the consent of the subjects, for one specified purpose; it can't be held longer than is needed for that purpose; subjects can request to see the data held on them, and to have mistakes corrected; and the data can't be given to anyone else (unless this is necessary for the originally specified purpose, and the recipient follows the same r
Re: (Score:2)
Having a database of personal information IS illegal in the UK unless you've registered it with the Data Protection commission or some such body. That should cover most spammers.
I'm sure there are exemptions for personal use, but you'll have trouble convincing the court that you have 235,000 close personal friends
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
if consequences + chance-of-getting-caught gain from act, don't perform the act
heavy consequences + enforcement of the law = act not performed nearly as often.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of C++ programmers (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)