Tech Shout!

A man Minnesota USA who was responsible for sending billions of spam messages via America Online in 2003 was ordered to pay the AOL ISP $5.3 million, a federal judge ruled this week.

Christopher William Smith, 25, who is at present in jail waiting an October trial on federal charges that he ran an illegal online pharmacy in 2004 and 2005, reportedly sent spam mails to users with shills for online college degrees, porn sites, and bogus Viagra.

St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that William Smith dropped out of high school in 1998, and lived in a $1.1 million house until he was arrested.

AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham told the Associated Press that Smith “was the poster child for the CAN-SPAM Act,” legislation that Congress enacted in 2003 and which went into effect two years ago this month. “This is someone we’ve been pursuing for three years,” Graham said.

This judgment is one of the largest ever received by AOL in a spam case, its good to see that spammers are finally being brought to justice.