SEARCH SITE

VIRGINIA LAW PORTAL

SEARCHABLE DATABASES

ACROSS SESSIONS

Developed and maintained by the Division of Legislative Automated Systems.

2010 SESSION

  • | print version

HB 1 Electronic mail, unsolicited commercial; narrows scope of spam statute, penalty.

Introduced by: G. Manoli Loupassi | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:

Unsolicited commercial electronic mail (spam); penalty. Narrows the scope of the existing spam statute to cover only those emails that constitute unsolicited commercial electronic mail (spam). Commercial electronic mail is defined in the bill as electronic mail, the primary purpose of which is the advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service. Spam is defined as a subset of commercial mail that is unsolicited. The definition of spam excludes emails that are transmitted by a sender to a person with whom the sender has an existing business or personal relationship.

Any person who (i) falsifies or forges the transmission or routing information of spam or (ii) knowingly sells, gives, or distributes software designed to facilitate the transmission of spam is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The penalty for sending spam rises to a Class 6 felony if the person sends a certain volume of spam in a given time period or generates a certain amount of revenue from a spam transmission.

This bill corrects a constitutional infirmity identified in the ruling of the Virginia Supreme Court in Jaynes v. Commonwealth, 276 Va. 443 (2008). In its opinion the Supreme Court held that Virginia Code § 18.2-152.3:1 (anti-spam statute) is unconstitutionally overbroad on its face because it prohibits the anonymous transmission of all unsolicited bulk emails, including those containing political, religious, or other speech protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.


FULL TEXT

AMENDMENTS

HISTORY