The law is targeting those people responsible for sending bulk email to or from Virginia, which is home to internet giants including America Online.
The new state law is seeking to end practices such as forging the return address line of an email, and those found guilty of sending more than 10,000 emails a day could face a maximum five-year prison sentence.
In addition to the prison sentence, spammers would lose the right to any profits and assets connected with their illegal activity.
Spam now accounts for more than half of the email sent and the majority of it comes from the US. Virginia is not the first state to enact a law, but other states and the US Congress are looking closely at the issue.
A new report by the Federal Trade Commission says that almost two-thirds of spam sent comes with either false return addresses or a misleading subject line. The use of misleading subject lines is employed to evade email filters and ensure that the spam is not deleted.
Virginia's governor Mark Warner told the New York Times that the new law could have a significant effect on spam because half of all internet traffic flows through the state.
"Many spammers see the current system that imposes civil fines as just a cost of doing business. We hope we will see some high-profile prosecutions. If someone faces a jail sentence and a major forfeiture of assets, it will serve as a deterrent," Warner said.
However, some legal experts said they doubted whether Virginia would have as much of an impact as Warner suggested. Legal cases, they said, would probably be bogged down by questions over jurisdiction. Moreover, there are practical problems that limit the ability of prosecutors to reach beyond their own states.
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