A former computer engineer for America Online was sentenced yesterday to 15 months in prison for stealing 92 million screen names and e-mail addresses and selling them to an unsolicited bulk e-mail marketer.
Twenty-four-year-old Jason Smathers - who pleaded guilty to violating conspiracy and federal anti-spam laws - was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein.
Smathers, of Harpers Ferry WV, allegedly was paid more than $100,000 for selling the e-mail addresses to Sean Dunaway, 21, who reportedly used the addresses to send gambling advertisements to AOL users. Dunaway was arrested on related charges in June of 2004. The case against Dunaway is pending.
Smathers was reportedly teary-eyed as he told the judge "I know I’ve done something very wrong."
Smathers was fired by AOL in June 2004.
AOL, the Dulles, Va.-based unit of Time Warner, is aggressively - and according to its public relations department, successfully - waging war on those who attempt to send unsolicited bulk commercial to its users.
The company last week said that spam is down more than 85 % on its service as measured by member referrals and that its anti-spam filters are blocking more than 1.4 billion pieces of spam each day, compared to a high of 2.4 billion spam e-mail blocked in a day in 2003.
The company also said it recovered more than $100,000 worth of gold bars and a 2003 Hummer H2 from an unnamed unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail marketer and that it would give the items and cash away through an "AOL Spammers Gold Sweepstakes," which runs through Friday.
The gold, cash and Hummer were seized as part of the first lawsuit filed by AOL under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, the Internet service provider said.
AOL said it has also obtained a $13 million judgment against the defendants in the case.
