This just in from the Washington Post: Va. Supreme Court Strikes Down State's Anti-Spam Law
Background: In 2006, I reported (prematurely, it turns out) that porn and fraud spammer Jeremy Jaynes had lost his appeal after having been convicted under the Virginia anti-spam law which prohibited fradulent header information in spam.
Today, the Washington Post story reports that the Virginia supreme court has ruled that a person's constitutional right to anonymity overrides the anti-spam law.
Does this mean Jaynes will go free? It's too early to tell; it may still be possible to prosecute him for stock and other fraud.
More importantly, what does this do to other anti-spam laws, including CAN SPAM? It's too early to tell, and I'm not a lawyer anyway, but it seems to me that this could have repercussions on the provisions of CAN SPAM which require that the spammer provide truthful contact information.
This decision is unlikely to affect anyone other than Jaynes. Even his lawyer said that if he'd done what he did after 1/03 when CAN SPAM came into effect, he'd have been caught by CAN SPAM.
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