A US man faces 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to sending spam to more than 1.2 million subscribers of America Online (AOL).

Adam Vitale was caught making a deal to send spam emails advertising a computer security program in return for 50 per cent of the profits.

According to prosecutors, Vitale defeated AOL’s spam filter system by using several different computer servers to relay the emails and changed the header information to ensure the messages could not be traced back to them.

The pair were said to have 40 different servers to send spam from and made $40,000 (£20,000) a month from other spam emails promoting stocks.

The emails were sent to more than 1.2 million AOL subscribers in less than a week. Vitale will be sentenced on 13 September.