• April 13, 2004

America Online praised Maryland state lawmakers on Tuesday for adopting a new bill with tough criminal penalties for major spammers that makes it the strongest, most comprehensive junk-email bill at the state level in the country. AOL helped craft the legislation, endorsed it, and testified twice on its behalf during its consideration before the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis. Both the Maryland House and Senate adopted the legislation late Monday.

The federal CAN-SPAM Act went into effect on Jan. 1, 2004. This legislation, if signed into law by Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich, would not be pre-empted by the federal antispam law and instead was crafted to work in tandem with and complement the national law.

The Act contains provisions assessing the toughest criminal penalties against the most egregious spammers. These criminal penalties, which can be pursued by state law enforcement agencies, include jail time of three, five or 10 years; stiff monetary penalties ranging from $5,000 to up to $25,000; and, asset forfeiture of personal property. The longer jail terms and higher fines would be triggered in the law by spammers who perpetrate more severe violations of the bill, repeated violations of the bill, and cross higher volume thresholds of junk email. AOL has pursued spammers aggressively with legal action in recent years. In March, AOL joined its industry partners Microsoft, Earthlink, and Yahoo! to announce the first major industry civil lawsuits against hundreds of spammers using the new federal CAN-SPAM law.