I have refrained from commenting on the seven-year sentence handed down to spammer Howard Carmack because, frankly, it depresses me. (The picture, which does not depress me, is from Jerk.Net.)

Carmack was slime. But he was an individual piece of slime, a man who claimed to be running an honest business. He was like a guy with a bathtub in Chicago during the early 1920s, making gin, getting caught, and being made an example of.

Now it's going to get tough.

Spam is about to merge with organized crime.

There are several underground businesses that will demand spam as other marketing avenues are closed. Porn. Internet gambling. Those phony drug and financial scams that already clutter your inbox.

This is where organized crime plays naturally, at the intersection of illicit supply and illicit demand, where a market needs to be made. Spammers like Carmack can be traced, by both FBI and Russian Mafia agents. They can be arrested by the former, but they will be shaken down, taken over, or taken out by the latter.

Within a year, I predict, the days of the individual spammer will be over. The days of the corporate spammer will be here. And the volumes of hard-to-trace spam that will result will dwarf anything we have seen to date.

These will seem like sublime and innocent days very soon.

The spam wars are going to get serious, and they are going to get deadly.

Carmack should rejoice. He's safe.

It's the rest of us who should fear.