Yesterday, Jason Smathers, the 25-year old former AOL employee who admitted to selling 92 million AOL screen names and email addresses, was sentenced to 15 months in prison. In addition to the jail term the judge also sentenced him to pay restitution of three times the USD $28,000 he sold this data for.
Reports indicate that as many as 7 billion (billion with a “B”) spam emails were sent to this list. AOL says their direct costs may have been $300,000 or more and may be asking for increased damages.
Read the article on Yahoo News.
I was surprised at the jail term since the judge originally stated he thought no crime was committed based on the laws in place at the time of the incident.
Does this scenario really send a message that will deter others from doing this in the future?
Category: Stefan Eyram
A recent Merrill Lynch survey of U.S. and European CIOs indicates that most companies are less than two-thirds along in implementing their Internet strategy. Read more…
Comments closedI am currently working with a company that is integrating their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and email marketing platforms.
Here are some interesting facts from a recent AMR Research survey (registration may be required for non-clients).
* Expected increase in spending on CRM software from 2005 to 2006: 8.2%
* Companies planning to use “hosted” CRM applications in the next 12 months: 49%