No matter how strange it might seem, the phishing is not a crime punished by the law.
Or at least, that was the case until last Friday, when California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, approved a bill which makes phishing illegal.


Phishing schemes are used to obtain the users' personal information, which is used afterwards for purchases or for fake auctions.


California becomes in this way the first American state to adopt such a law, and its example will surely be adopted by other states as well. Even so, it is uncertain to what extent these measures will succeed to decrease the phishing level, since such schemes don't require the presence of servers on American territory.

In any case, the Californian law now punishes everyone who tries to illegally obtain personal information, and the victims are entitled to request damages of up to $500,000.