How much for the spammers' dream-come-true? Just $52,000 for every single AOL email address, according to Reuters — a little over 1/200th of a penny for each one (and we wonder why spam's so prevalent).

AOL Worker Sold Customer List for Spam, U.S. Charges
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. investigators said on Wednesday they had arrested an America Online employee for stealing the Internet provider's customer list and selling it to a purveyor of "spam" e-mail.

Jason Smathers of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, has been charged with stealing a list of 92 million AOL customer screen names and selling them to Internet marketer Sean Dunaway [who] also sold the list to other spammers.
...
Both men face up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 under a national anti-spam law.

The ridiculous part is that, if he was smart enough to cover his tracks, he might have gotten away with it: " A search of Smathers' computer showed he had discussed ways to spam AOL members in April 2003, the complaint said." (It's unclear if that's how they caught him, or if that's just some evidence that was uncovered after he came under suspicion for other reasons.)

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