Colorado Bill Ritter signed in to law a bill making spam and violation of the CAN-SPAM ACT a crime under state law and allowing recipients to recover damages of up to $10 million if they can identify the sender and prove financial loss. Sending spam to any Colorado resident will become a misdemeanor. The law will go into affect on August 8th and replaces a previous state law regarding commercial email. The bill's sponsors claim that spammers cost U.S. businesses about $70 million annually in lost productivity and IT costs.