Jeffrey A. Kilbride of Venice, Calif., and James R. Schaffer of Paradise Valley, Ariz., have been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The prosecution against the two men was the first under the new anti-spam laws.

The two purchased lists of e-mail addresses and sent their owners links to pornographic Web sites, prosecutors said. Kilbride and Schaffer were convicted since June this year of charges including conspiracy, money laundering, fraud and transportation of obscene materials.

The millions of spam e-mails earned them around $2 million in commissions, of which they were ordered to forfeit $1.3 million (of which Kilbride and Schaffer were fined $100,000 each and ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution to AOL). Kilbride and Schaffer tried to cover their tracks by using a server in Amsterdam, but they have been traced back to their real location, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Kilbride received six years in prison (because he tried to prevent a witness testifying at the trial), while Schaffer received a 5 1/4 year sentence. They started the spam scheme in 2003, and it involved a dummy corporation set up in Mauritius, as well as bank accounts in Mauritius and the Isle of Man. Three other codefendants in the case: Jennifer Clason of Tempe, AZ; Andrew Ellifson of Scottsdale, AZ; and Kirk Rogers of Manhattan Beach, CA, pleaded guilty to charges brought up by prosecutors and turned in evidence against Kilbride and Schaffer.

The UK introduced similar anti-spam laws in 2003, but no convictions have yet resulted. The United States introduced the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003, which established the first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail. However, the CAN-SPAM Act is sometimes referred to as the "YOU-CAN-SPAM Act" because the bill was allegedly backed by lobbyists for prominent spammers and preempts stronger state anti-spam measures. The CAN-SPAM blocked effectively tougher anti-spam legislation by the State of California, for example.

Anti-spam rules have to be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).