Spammers pay providers a $2.6 million fine.

An American court has ordered spammers to pay a $2.6 million fine to a small Internet service provider. The court's decision was based on the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) anti-spam law.

A spammer company sent out over 25,000 messages over a period of 1.5 years. Because of the spammers, the ISP has to spend around $3,000 per month on spam control. They have to process around 200,000 spam messages daily.

The judge initially assessed damages at $865,000, but later increased them. Under the CAN-SPAM Act, damages for each message can be up to $100.