U.S. charges four under new law against 'spam' e-mails

[CShine]

U.S. authorities charged four people in Detroit on Wednesday with e-mailing fraudulent sales pitches for weight-loss products, the first criminal prosecutions under the government's new "can spam" legislation.

Court papers identified the four as Daniel J. Lin, James J. Lin, Mark M. Sadek and Christopher Chung, all believed living in suburban Detroit. They were accused of disguising their identities in hundreds of thousands of e-mail sales pitches and delivering e-mails by bouncing messages through unprotected relay computers on the Internet.

Chung and Sadiek appeared in U.S. District Court and were released on unsecured bonds, said Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. The Lins have not been arrested.

Authorities said their company sold a weight-loss patch under the corporate names AIT Herbal, Avatar Nutrition, Phoenix Avatar and others. The companies allegedly operated out of Detroit and nearby communities of West Bloomfield and Birmingham.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/04/28/financial1812EDT0366.DTL

[TheMightyFavog]

1. I say bring back the pillories!

That alone would be enough to keep the spammers from bugging us.

[kskiska]

2. I wish they'd arrest whoever is sending me porn

e-mails – a couple dozen a day. It's a pain in the a** having to trash this stuff every time I download my mail.

[truthisfreedom]

3. good. i receive 125 junk emails per day, and it's freaking annoying.

this has to end. 30 good ones, 125 spams. my spam filter catches about 80 of them.