Monday, January 09, 2006

Economic death penalty for spammers?

An Iowa judge has awarded a small ISP a judgement of over a billion US dollars against spam operations that made his business operations almost impossible. It's an "economic death sentence" the ISP's lawyer said. The lawyer and his client don't expect to receive the full judgement, but do expect to obtain enough from the illegal operators to put them out of business.

I've wondered what would be appropriate punishment for sociopaths who knowingly steal small quantities from each of millions of people. This may be it: economic death. The point isn't the punishment as much as the deterrent effect.

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