$100,000 fine for man in spam case

SEATTLE — An Oregon man was ordered yesterday to pay nearly $100,000 in fines and court costs in the first case brought under Washington's tough law against spam e-mail.

Attorney General Christine Gregoire's office estimates that Jason Heckel, 28, of Salem, doing business as Natural Instincts, sent as many as 20,000 unsolicited e-mails to Washington residents in 1998, trying to sell a $39.95 booklet called "How to Profit from the Internet."

The case was the first brought after the Legislature's 1998 move to ban commercial e-mail with misleading information in the subject line, invalid reply addresses or with disguised paths of transmission.