Robert Alan Soloway is one of the most notorious spammers that have been uncovered to date in the technological age – he is literally the person that every computer user loves to hate. Founder of the "Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam," also known as SPAMIS, he attempted to paint himself as an opponent of unsolicited, commercial e-mail; though in reality he was the complete opposite.

Soloway used some very sneaky and unscrupulous spamming techniques in his campaigns. He has been known for hijacking computers of average web surfers via the World Wide Web (without their knowledge of course), as well as some advanced online spoofing techniques in order to distribute his spam emails across the internet.

And that is exactly when the legal troubles began for this well-known spammer. In 2003 he was successfully sued by Microsoft and charged with $7 million in damages and fines, and he was also ordered to pay $10 million to a company in Oklahoma as well.

But Soloway wasn’t going to stop just because he had already been successful sued on two separate occasions. Instead he continued his spam operations until at least April of 2005. On May 30, 2007, Robert Soloway was arrested on numerous indictments from a grand jury including identity theft and money laundering, as well as mail, wire, and e-mail fraud. In 2008 he plead guilty to 3 counts, and was later sentenced to pay over $700,000 in damages and serve 47 months in a federal prison.