Spam is on the rise – now instead of only having to worry about it in our e-mail inboxes, we’re seeing unsolicited commercial e-mails on our cell phones, mobile devices, and even in real-life. With all of this email spam being sent across the World Wide Web, many people have the impression that professional spammers are left to run rampant online; and for a while they were. Lately, however, governments are beginning to crack down on known spammers, and there have been some harsh sentences handed down in some of the legal cases that have already been seen.

One ex-employee of America Online was sentenced to one year and three months in prison, and also fined $82,000 for stealing and illegal distributing a mailing list of names, addresses, and other personal information from his former employer. However, he actually got off light compared to some other sentences that have been handed down regarding spam legal cases.

Jeremy Jaynes, a notorious professional spammer, was sentenced to 9 years in the state of Virginia for violation of < href="http://www.perimetec.com/Services.php">anti spam operation however, the decision was later reversed. And for their involvement with a pornographic spam ring, two men, one from California and one from Arizona were sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison each, fined $100,000, ordered to pay over $75,000 in restitution, and they were forced to forfeit the $1.1 million they had made from their spamming campaign.

Sometimes there is no prison time for those convicted of spamming or similar practices, but instead only harsh fines. Take for example the case of Sanford Wallace, or the self-proclaimed “Spam King”. After a conviction in 2006 he was ordered to pay over $5 million in restitution, and most recently, in 2008 Wallace was found guilty in a separate trial regarding the social network giant MySpace. He was ordered to pay over $230 million in this case.