Yes, there have been notable CFAA prosecutions involving spamming activities. One significant case involved Power Ventures, which faced prosecution for both CFAA and CAN-SPAM violations. The company was sued by Facebook for sending promotional emails and messages through Facebook's platform without authorization[5][6].
The Department of Justice has recently revised its CFAA prosecution policies, particularly following significant court decisions that have narrowed the statute's interpretation. The DOJ now focuses on more clear-cut violations rather than mere terms of service violations[2][4].
For CFAA prosecution to proceed today, prosecutors must typically demonstrate that:
- The defendant was aware of specific access restrictions
- There were clear technological measures attempting to prevent unauthorized access
- The defendant knowingly circumvented these measures[4]
The cold email handbook clearly demonstrates how to circumvent Gmail’s limitations and the author is clearly aware that doing so violates their terms of service. So I would argue they are at risk of being prosecuted.
And as someone who runs a large email filtering service, I can tell you with some authority and confidence that the industry really loves helping law enforcement go after these groups.
