"Spam King" Pleads Guilty

'Spam king' pleads guilty: Sentence for three charges could top 20 years, Seattle P-I, March 14, 2008.

Robert Soloway, 28, pleaded guilty to three counts: fraud, e-mail fraud -- also known as the Can-Spam Act -- and failure to file an income tax return. He had faced 40 charges.

The case is in the Western District of Washington. Mr. Soloway will be sentenced by Judge Marsha Pechman.

This is only the second conviction under the CAN-SPAM Act, Pub. L. 108-187, 117 Stat. 2699 (2003).

Tangent: The full statute name is Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act. There were rival names. Other names for bills to do something about spam were the Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing Act (SPAM Act), Restrict and eliminate the Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial Electronic mail or Spam Act (REDUCE Spam Act), and Reduction In Distribution of Spam (RID Spam Act). Mary Whisner, What's in a Statute Name?, 97 Law Libr. J. 169, 180 n.77 (2005).

What's the relationship between the meat product and the invasive email, anyway? Hormel, the company that makes SPAM, links it to the Monty Python skit in which the crescendoing chorus of "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM" drowned out all other discourse. Id.

(The essay is about much more than the CAN-SPAM Act, in case you ever wondered why the Sherman Act is "the Sherman Act" or Megan's Law is "Megan's Law.")

Graphic: SPAM poster from the SPAM Store.