I’m back, after a restful and enjoyable vacation, which was spent almost completely off-line. I checked email twice over the course of two weeks, for about an hour each. It’s somewhat eye opening to think that you can probably spend an hour per week in order to respond to critical emails. You’re not necessarily wasting the rest of the time, but if pressed, you could probably avoid spending it on email. I opted to go without email access via a handheld, which is painful, but is an interesting exercise. Oddly, I took my Verizon-provided Treo thinking I would just use the phone at the airport or in case of an emergency, but it turned out to offer (roaming) coverage in the far reaches of Northern India. I communicated a bit by text message and it turned out to be surprisingly inexpensive. 

In the end, it took me about a full week to realize that my world would not come crashing down if I didn't compulsively check email every 2 minutes.  It was a good feeling.

I won’t bother trying to round up what happened in the meantime (that would sort of defeat the purpose of the vacation), but the Spam King sentence is worth a comment.  M. Atkins posts here, noting that Judge Pechman handed down a 47 month sentence.  It’s probably best characterized as a split the baby result, but somewhat closer to Soloway’s recommendation than the government’s. (Soloway is reported as saying that the sentence is “fair”.) While Soloway didn’t end up in one of the choice facilities, he did end up in “prison camp,” which I understand is – all things considered – a better category of federal prison in which to serve a sentence.  Maybe the government didn’t dispute this, but either way he’s probably happy about that (although he didn't get his pick of which one).

See also, the Seattle PI report here which notes the court’s acknowledgment of the difficult issues presented by the sentencing. The court (somewhat incorrectly, in my view) analogized spamming to “pollution,” which is


Ed Falk (Spam Diaries) also has a roundup here.

The memoranda on the defense side are well worth a read (see , e.g., SpamSuite.com here).  They highlight a key difficulty with the sentencing issue: there’s fraud/bad acts that just happen to be effected via email, and then there’s harm that’s really tied to technical use of the email – it’s tough to tell the difference, and tough unless you step back, to see which side this case falls on.  (To complicate things, pure unsolicited but materially accurate email falls in neither category.)  The problem from the government’s standpoint is that it seemed to pitch the case as falling in the first category, but didn’t have much evidence that he actually defrauded large numbers of people. (In fact I got the sense it really wasn't sure which to pitch this case as.)  I got the sense that only 60 or so victims came forward, which if true could be a testament to this.  In any event, the restitution figure seems fairly low (although maybe its tied to ability to pay, but I don't think this is the case). 

Although the government had to contend that the spam in question caused harm to a large number of people, it was left with offering the testimony of a small group, which some may describe as a cadre of activists. And this isn’t the type of victim impact evidence that typically sways judges. On the other hand, Soloway’s own bravado, and perceived claims that he was above the law likely influenced the court in favor of sending a message. (The comparison to Jaynes was interesting. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.)  It was also interesting that the government seemed to emphasize all of the peripheral bad acts (tax issues).  Probably typical, but I was still surprised by it and on some level it showed lack of real evidence on the actual "spamming issue".

In the end a deterrent message was probably sent, although one can speculate as to whether it will be effective or fair.  I would guess when you look at the lifestyle he reportedly enjoyed, comparably profitable crimes carry far steeper sentences.  (Probably a better subject for academics.) But one thing is for sure, you definitely get the sense from reading through the documents that on the civil side enforcement does not seem to have much effect.

So far, the score:  Jaynes = 9 years (rehearing pending), Kilbride (et al.) = 5 years (on appeal to the 9th Cir.), and Soloway = 4 years.

NB:  there's nothing like spending a couple of weeks surrounded by people who do not have access to email to make you step back and think about the relevance of email and spam in the overall scheme.