§1037 Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Electronic Mail

Summary

Makes it a crime to knowingly send or help send large amounts of commercial email by lying, hiding where the messages come from, or using computers or accounts without permission. The law covers five main acts: accessing a protected computer without authorization and sending many commercial emails; using a protected computer to relay or retransmit many commercial emails while trying to deceive recipients about their origin; putting false header information in many commercial emails and sending them; registering with materially false identity for five or more email or online user accounts or two or more domain names and sending many commercial emails from them; and falsely saying you control five or more Internet Protocol addresses and sending many commercial emails from those addresses. Conspiring to do any of these is also illegal. Punishments change with how bad the case is. In most cases a person can get a fine or up to 1 year in prison. Aggravated cases can get up to 3 years if certain thresholds are met. The sentence can be up to 5 years if the conduct furthers another felony or the defendant has a relevant prior conviction. Aggravating thresholds include specific account or domain counts, sending more than 2,500 messages in 24 hours (25,000 in 30 days, 250,000 in 1 year), causing $5,000 or more in loss or getting $5,000 or more in value, or organizing three or more other people. Courts must order forfeiture of gross proceeds and equipment or software used. Key defined words: "loss"—has the meaning in section 1030(e); "materially"—altered so identification or investigation is impaired; "multiple"—more than 100 in 24 hours, more than 1,000 in 30 days, or more than 10,000 in 1 year; other terms—use the CAN-SPAM Act definitions.