Two new spam/phishing related laws are about to take effect next week in California.

The first makes phishing a crime. Yea yea, your thinking the same thing I was. Was stealing bank account, credit card and other information from people legal before SB355? The second makes spamming under California law a misdemeanor, with penalties up to $1,000 and 6 months in the county jail. Hardly a deterent if you ask me. What was the punishment before this..you have to go to bed without dinner?

State Senator Kevin Murray (D-LA) is about to get a pat on the back, but nothing is going to change.

***UPDATE***

And I can’t say Illinois is much safer either. If you are going to pass a law that requires businesses that suffer data breaches to notify their customers, why not try actually defining a time frame for that notification, rather than just “without unreasonable delay.”