Robert Soloway, also known as the “Spam King,” has been sentenced to almost four years in prison after pleading guilty to accusations of fraud, spamming and tax evasion. The sentence comes at a time when spammers have started to face prison time in addition to substantial financial restitutions.

Soloway is considered to be among the world’s most notorious spammers, after earning hundreds of thousands of dollars by sending millions of junk e-mails. In 2003 alone, his activities earned him an estimated $300,000.

This wasn’t the first time Soloway had to face prosecutors for illicit activities on the Internet. Microsoft was the first company to take legal action against him. Soloway was sued for spamming activities in 2003. Two years later, Microsoft won the lawsuit.

In 2007, after being charged with over 40 counts of mail fraud, the “Spam King” only pleaded guilty on three counts, while the rest were dropped.

Although he’s been lucky enough for so many years, this time the situation is different. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that Soloway must pay for his conduct, also pointing out the necessity of creating a set of guidelines regarding these spamming acts.

Soloway is just one of the several spammers that have been sentenced for years in prison. Earlier this year, the Virginia Supreme Court reinforced its position regarding illegal spamming against Jeremy Jaynes, who was convicted to 9 years in prison.

Also, in November 2007, 28 year-old Todd Moeller was sentenced to 27 months in prison after sending over 1.2 million e-mails to AOL customers. His partner, Adam Vitale, was sentenced to 30 months in prison in July this year.

In June this year, spammer Scott Richter was found guilty of spamming MySpace users with unsolicited advertisements and ordered to pay approximately $6 million in damages, which represents only a small fraction of what Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines had to pay MySpace for sending 30 million junk e-mails to its users.