It was one of the strongest bids yet to put a crimp in unsolicited commercial e-mail, but Washington state's anti-spam law has been ruled unconstitutional by a county judge hearing the first case brought under the law.
King County Superior Court Judge Palmer Robinson threw out the lawsuit by Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire against Jason Heckel of Salem Oregon. Robinson ruled the anti-spam law violated the Constitution's commerce clause as "unduly restrictive" and hurting legitimate business more than helping consumers.
Assistant attorney general Regina Cullen failed in her argument that Washington was within its rights to make businesses check a registry of e-mail addresses to determine whether recipients were state residents and covered by the law, MSNBC says.
The law was passed two years ago, when Internet service providers and consumers complained about spam deluges. It banned spam with misleading information in the subject line, invalid reply addresses, or disguised Net transmission paths. Washington has through April 10 to appeal Robinson's ruling.
Heckel had been accused of sending between 100,000 and one million spam messages per week under the business name Natural Instincts. The messages were sales pitches for his "How To Profit From The Internet" package and helped him sell up to 50 packages per month - but court papers say the return e-mail address proved invalid.
A worker for a computer service company in Salem, Oregon, Heckel is also entitled to recover costs from Washington under Robinson's ruling.
