Re: Good
The fines would be adequate deterrent if the ICO were able to collect them.
Carphone Warehouse will have to cough up their recent £400k fine (although they'll claim the 20% discount for early payment), but the bottom-feeding spamming industry all know to rinse their activities through disposable shell companies, and I'll be surprised if the ICO (or more strictly HMT) see a brass farthing of these penalties. Until the various different regulators act together (so Companies House, the Insolvency Service, OFCOM, and the ICO, plus any relevant professional bodies), and/or until government ensure unpaid corporate penalties can be recovered from directors, spamming will remain a punishment-free crime.
Given that the War on Porn, and the War on Plastic Bags have higher priority for this government than any number of far more important challenges, I would suspect that sorting out fine-dodging spammers is somewhere on the list of things that they won't ever do.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
