Spammers Beware!

On March 9th, Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo) filed a complaint in United States District Court alleging that three Canadian individuals, and the businesses operated by them, had violated the U.S.Federal antispam legislation.This case, and other cases that were brought that same day by other ISPs, highlight the high costs which spam imposes on the users of e-mail systems and the providers of e-mail services. Studies have estimated that the total costs associated with the many billions of spam e-mail messages that are circulated every day, exceeded US$10 billion in 2003.

Many jurisdictions, including the European Union and many U.S. states, have enacted laws to address the spam problem.The United States Federal law, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003, 15 U.S.C.§7704 (CANSPAM), which came into force on January 1, 2004, is one of the most recent additions to the potential sources of legal recourse to the spam problem.