A brother and sister in the US have been convicted of sending hundreds of thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages to AOL subscribers.
It is the first criminal prosecution of internet spam distributors.
Jurors in Virginia recommended that the man, Jeremy Jaynes, serve nine years in prison and that his sister, Jessica DeGroot, be fined $7,500.
They were convicted under a state law that bars the sending of bulk e-mails using fake addresses.
