The numbers above might sound stellar, but let's not forget that we're talking about spam here, and the quality-over-quality rule doesn't quite apply: ask any spammer and he'll tell you that the more, the merrier. The Tokyo police found one of these merry men today and arrested him for sending nine (!) spam emails, advertising gambling and dating services that had fake sender information.

There's a law dating back to 2002 that prohibits sending spam emails without providing the correct sender information, and it got amended in 2004. To be completely honest, I don't really understand why there isn't a law prohibiting spam emails being sent period, it's not like they're doing people any good or have information that's vital for their well being. After all, a definition for spam would have to include 'unsolicited email' in it.

The spammer was caught after an Internet Service Provider reported his activities to the police, underlining that he had been sending massive amounts of emails in September 2007, as Japan Today reports. The authorities' investigation brought to life the fact that Yuki Shina, 25, had purchased 600,000 email addresses for 100,000 yen and had been using his home PC to send the spam. His investment was repaid tenfold, as the police said that he had earned 2 million yen during the time his criminal activities took place.

Since May 2006 he is believed to have sent about 2.2 billion spam emails, and apparently wasn't aware (yeah, right!) of the fact that it was a felony, from what the police managed to get out of him.

The extent to which such individuals will go to get their job done is quite amazing, because if they were to invest that much time and energy into something creative, I'm sure they'd be able to come up with something good and successful. But after all, who wants to work when an alternative is available?