Teen-stalking Google engineer David Barksdale could face up to five years in prison if he were to be convicted of violating the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits the intentional interception of electronic communication.

Network engineers like Barksdale are normally granted safe harbor under the law, but that would not apply to Barksdale since his spying on four underaged teens' Google Voice and Talk accounts was not in "the normal course of business," according to tech journalist Mike Magee's TechEye.

Most first time offenders get off with a mere criminal fine rather than jail time.The law also opens violators to civil suits, but the plaintiff that could demonstrate the biggest monetary loss from Barksdale's actions, Google, also wants this incident to go away as quickly as possible. So that probably won't be happening anytime soon.