What are the Penalties for Violating the CAN-SPAM Act?
Each separate email in violation of the Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, and more than one person may be held responsible for violations. For example, both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that originated the message may be legally responsible. The Act also has certain “aggravated” violations that may give rise to additional fines.
The law provides for criminal penalties – including imprisonment – for:
* Accessing someone else’s computer without permission;
* Using false information to register for multiple email accounts or domain names;
* Relaying or retransmitting multiple spam messages through a computer to mislead others about the origin of the message;
* Harvesting email addresses or generating them through a dictionary attack (sending email to addresses made up of random letters and numbers in the hope of reaching valid ones); and
* Taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without permission.
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