Australian spammer fined £2.2m

An Australian company and its director have been fined a total of AUD$5.5m (£2.2m) after it was claimed they sent more than 200 million spam emails in a 12-month period.

The Perth-based spammer, Wayne Mansfield, and his company Clarity1, were found to have illegally sent out millions of spam messages in the first year since Australian spam laws were introduced in April 2004.

In April 2006, authorities in the country raided an address in Perth, during which the contents of computer hard disks and other material were seized.

Complaints about Mansfield's spam emails had been received from as far afield as the United Kingdom.

Earlier this year, Justice Nicholson of the Federal Court in Perth rejected defence pleas that recipients had consented to receive the emails.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos, said: "This is the first time that spammers have been successfully prosecuted under the Australian Spam Act, and represents a victory for the authorities and the man in the street pestered by nuisance email.

"Spam is a global problem, and robust action needs to be taken against spammers – wherever they are based in the world – in order to send out a clear message that their activities are unacceptable."

Clueley said that substantial penalties must be handed out to spammers who were only in it for the money in the first place.