Leader: Is justice really being meted out to spammers?

This past week has seen three high-profile cases hit the headlines in which spammers have been sentenced to prison. It's good news for those intent on bringing an end to pernicious bulk email.

But it probably needs to be ascertained to what degree their involvement in spamming was the reason for their custodial sentence. Take the two Nigerian men jailed for a total of 37 years for their part in a fraud, started over email, which resulted in the closure of a Brazilian bank after one employee fell for the email scam and lost the bank $240m.

It is a case without compare in the world of spamming. The amount of money concerned means the legality or otherwise of bulk email is entirely secondary to the headline issue of their committing such a vast fraud.

Then there is the case of Peter Francis-Macrae, cited by Spamhaus as the UK's most prolific spammer. He was jailed last week for a total of six years for offences ranging from fraud, related to the scams within his emails, to blackmail and threatening to kill.

What part those last two facts played in ensuring Francis-Macrae got his day in court is unclear but no doubt considerable.

And then there was the case of Peter Moshou who was tried and convicted in the US for offences relating entirely to the sending of spam email. He was sentenced to one year.

We feel this pattern is a promising one because it acknowledges several important facts which to date have largely failed to register with legislators and lawmakers.

Spam is a menace. It costs businesses millions each year and it needs to be stamped out forcefully. But in and of itself it simply cannot be regarded as an offence which carries a high tariff in terms of jail time. Therefore a case, such as Moshou's which looks at the mechanics of sending spam, is never going to have as severe an outcome as one where the spam was merely a means to a far more serious end.

It's possible to fear that spammers are only going to run into trouble with the law when other activities take their heads far enough above the parapet for them to be noticed.

But it's also possible to see that spammers are being recognised as criminals operating within quite complex webs of criminal behaviour and the law will pick them up as and when they can – often for offences unrelated to the sending of bulk email.

But the net result is the same. A spammer behind bars cannot send spam and whether they're there because they didn't have a TV licence or because "they shot a man in Reno just to see him die" as Johnny Cash put it, it's a good thing.