"Spam king" arrested, faces multiple charges

Stephen Withers
Friday, 01 June 2007 09:19

Your IT - Home IT

An alleged "spam king" said to be responsible for many millions of spam messages over several years has been arrested in the US.

Robert Alan Soloway faces charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, fraud in connection with electronic mail, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering.

Allegations include the sale of broadcast mail software that did not work as advertised, falsely claiming that a broadcast mail service used a "Permission-Based Opt-In" database, failing to remove addresses from the database when requested, use of a credit card without the account holder's consent, forging real email addresses in the from and to headers of spam messages, and providing a false corporate address.

If convicted, Soloway and his company Newport Internet Marketing stand to forfeit over $US770,000 plus the contents of several bank accounts. He also faces the prospect of a prison sentence of up to 65 years.

At one stage, Soloway was on the Spamhaus list of the "worst of the worst" criminal spammers.

According to a Spamhaus statement, "Soloway's violations of the U.S. CAN-SPAM law and various state anti-spam laws resulted in his being sued successfully by a number of plaintiffs, including Microsoft Corporation and Robert Braver, owner of an Oklahoma-based ISP. Both Microsoft and Braver received damage awards of millions of dollars. Soloway never paid these awards". Spamhaus also notes that in 2005 a US District Court judge issued a permanent injunction forbidding Soloway from sending messages that contravened the CAN-SPAM act, but he ignored it.

Spam filtering specialists welcomed Soloway's arrest, but warned it is unlikely to have any significant effect on spam volumes - except perhaps in the short term - as there are plenty of other players that can take up the slack.