The penalties for being a spammer are no joke these days. Sanford Wallace, often referred to as the "Spam King", is experiencing this firsthand, as he deals with a $711 million judgment against him for spamming Facebook. Now, another legendary spammer is also facing a steep penalty for his spamming ways. Alan Ralsky, called the "Godfather of Spam", will be paying for his crimes in a jail cell, serving 51 months in prison for his career in sending mass amounts of junk email.

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I guess that's good news, but as the article says, this probably won't make much of a difference in the end. It's unbelievable that there is still no real solution for spam.

I would bet that this guy will more than likely not be spamming anymore. In my opinion jail sentences are what is really needed if they really want to put some sort of an end to the spam problem. If people keep getting harsh jail sentences it may scare a lot of others away from doing it.

Its nice yo see action being taken against some of the bigger spammers out there but as long as people have email accounts there wil be someone new to step up to the plate. Using a good filter for your inbox is the best way of preventing such a problem, gmail does a good job IMO. It would be nice if people who do this could just stop, but the same goes for people who make viruses and any other destructive tools used to cripple a computer. It would be like a world without war... and thats not happening soon either.

I think the best way to stop spam is to educate people about giving out their email. In most cases spam is sent to those who sign up for everything under the rainbow. I personally use an alternative email to sign up for most things.

Not everyone has the luxury, but I use a single email address per website - even my friends are each given a custom email address - this gives me ultimate control over received mail. If an address is even compromised, I have to contact just the "owner" of that email address, give them a new one and /dev/null anything sent to the old addy.

Works for me.

That said, I also filter all my email via Gmail and with their huge collection of mail, they're awesome at identifying spam and most regular "junk" never even makes it to my inbox.

It's a shame we have to jump through all those hoops.

I hope they feed this scumbag nothing but spam for the rest of his sentence :)

Another one bites the dust. Well, this is good news, even though i believe spammers are like mushrooms, you pluck 1, another will juz pop up to take the place.

I totally agree with @paynetrain007 on this one. I only give out my email to friends/family and to reputable organizations. And I use a spare address for sites that i plan on using transiently or don't trust. Haha.

Awesome!
It's great to hear that these guys actually get punished.
Let's face it, it isn't rocket science to figure out where all this spam originates.
Now all the wannabes will think twice before spamming others...

Unfortunately it won’t make much a difference but at they’re hacking away at the spammers. I block 99% of the mail coming into my system. Think of the traffic all that spam generates, I’m only 1 mail system blocking thousands of emails a day.,

My gmail accounts blocks over 99% of spam - I rarely get any in my actual inbox. So as long as google, yahoo, M$, etc. stay ahead of the spammers, I don't really see the problem. Unless of course you go into the spam folder and click on an interesting link :)

It's good to see the legal system working however as several have stated it won't make that much of a difference in the amount of spam. Who buys things from spam emails anyways, I've never figured that one out. If spam gets through the email filter, just delete them.

Ugh, I hate spammers. Good thing gmail is awesome at keeping them away. He deserves what he got. Lol they should make him eat a can of spam for every million he caused.

Amazing example made out of the spam king!

Hope they learn.

Sure I don't like spammers but 41 months seams a bit extreme for just spamming....
This could pave the way for more internet crime laws and punishments :(

@ Deso: This isn't just spamming though, the guy was trying to manipulate the price of stocks which he owned. Which is a pretty severe crime in the financial world

It is a good way of making an example, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. I get a lot of spam in my mailbox and it is really starting to annoy me. :S

Oh the atricle didn't mention that > . >

As others have mentioned, this won't do much to stop spam. But what the heck - I'll take it! Slap these fools away and throw away the key. Can you imagine the speed of the Internet without being clogged up by all those worthless e-mails being sent out by the billions?

It's so true that spam has gotten too out of control. Especially for those of us who use free services like gmail, hotmail, etc. I can't wait for the day to check my email and not have to delete a handful or so of junk.

But every once in a while I will get one that will make me laugh.... like that time my distant cousin was an Arabian prince and left me 5 million dollars. I never heard back from that guy..huh