Legislative efforts are being delayed in part by disputes over what is spam and what is
proper marketing activity, Privacy Foundation consultant Smith said.
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Despite numerous legislative, consumer and technological efforts to weed it out, experts
say spam e-mail continues to proliferate, sparking increasing user irritation in the
process.
In fact, the problem has worsened in recent months. "There is now 16 times as much spam
on the Internet as there was just two years ago,"
Gartner vice president Joyce Graff told the
E-Commerce Times.
The number one reason is the global rise of Web use, which has given spammers more places
to buy mailing lists and more opportunity to copy e-mail addresses from listservs and
bulletin boards.
It also offers anonymous spammers new locations in which they can set up fly-by-night
e-mail addresses. Moreover, they can switch easily from one location to another, making
it nearly impossible to trace the true source of most mass mailings.
Like Stomping Roaches
"It's like stomping on cockroaches in your kitchen," Graff said. "You can get rid of
some, but there are always more coming from somewhere else."
In addition to its cheapness and easy distribution, Graff said the situation is
complicated by the fact that spam comes in four distinct varieties, and a couple of the
categories include mail that many actually find useful, often in corporate settings.
Graff noted that most e-mail falls into the categories of pure trash (fraudulent schemes,
invalid senders and offensive product pitches); chain letters, urban legends and hoaxes;
honest small-business owners just looking to make a living (the Net version of plain
"junk mail"); and occupational spam from colleagues.
That last category is tough to deal with from a filtering perspective. Graff said it
includes industry-related mailing lists and listserv discussions, any one of which can be
extremely helpful to someone in one company department -- and totally useless to those in
other departments.
Lawmakers Fight Back
Fighting back is difficult because spammers are not hemmed in by state or national
boundaries. In the United States, several states have enacted laws prohibiting e-mail
bombardment, but those laws are hard to enforce on mail that originates outside the state
or country.
Despite this conundrum, several federal bills have been proposed in Congress over the
past year, although nothing has been enacted yet.
In the current Congress, the House is considering the Unsolicited Commercial
Electronic Mail Act (House Resolution 95). Introduced in 2001 by Representative Gene
Green (D-Texas), it would forbid the use of an Internet service provider's facilities to
send unsolicited commercial e-mail in violation of the provider's policies, if those
policies are clearly posted on a domain-name Web site.
The Senate is considering a revised version of the Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN SPAM) Act. Senate Bill 630, introduced last
year by Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana), would mandate that unsolicited e-mail be
labeled and include opt-out instructions. The bill also would ban deceptive subject lines
and false headers.
More Pending Laws
Other measures, introduced in 2001 by the previous Congress, also are pending:
Anti-Spamming Act (H.R. 1017), proposed by Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia),
would amend federal computer crime laws to make it illegal to send bulk e-mail with false
sender addresses or headers or to distribute software that enables such activity.
Netizens Protection Act (H.R. 3146), by Representative Christopher H. Smith (R-New
Jersey), is identical to a 1999 proposal requiring all unsolicited messages to contain
the sender's name, physical address and e-mail address as well as opt-out instructions.
Wireless Telephone Spam Protection Act (H.R. 113) would prohibit using wireless
messaging systems to send unsolicited advertisements.
Backlash for Marketers
Richard Smith, an Internet security and privacy consultant for the
Privacy Foundation, told the E-Commerce
Times that legislative efforts are being delayed in part by disputes over what is spam
and what is proper marketing activity.
"On the legal front, it appears that things are quiet right now for new laws regulating
spam," Smith said. "It is a bit difficult to distinguish between spam and legit e-mail."
Smith noted, however, that a growing consumer backlash is forcing the marketing industry
to take action.
"The industry is getting really concerned that consumers will start lumping together all
commercial e-mail messages in with spam messages," he said. "Groups like the DMA (Direct
Marketing Association) therefore are coming up with new rules for commercial e-mail to
keep down unsolicited messages and to help consumers determine what are legit offers and
what are not."
Legitimate But Annoying
But Forrester Research senior analyst Daniel
O'Brien said that even legitimate marketers need to reassess their use of mass e-mail
pitches, which he noted have increased significantly since the September 11th terrorist
attacks.
"In the short term, they may think they're getting an effective number of contacts for a
very low cost," O'Brien told the E-Commerce Times.
"But in the long term, they're ruining the market," he added. "They're tarnishing their
brand name and contributing to the overload."
Consumer Strategies
Until government or industry relief arrives, Smith said, the best way for consumers to
reduce spam is to avoid listing their e-mail address in online directories or allowing it
to appear on newsgroup messages.
"They also want to limit the number of Web sites that
they give their e-mail address to," he added.
Gartner's Graff said most available filtering products and services have limited
effectiveness. The majority do no more than create blacklists and block certain senders,
but those features are defeated by senders who change names and addresses.
However, Graff said that some software offerings -- most notably Brightmail and Elron --
are taking filtering to a higher level by creating and downloading spam "signatures,"
much like virus-fighting programs do.
Graff said Brightmail and Elron use sender validation codes and algorithms to determine
what is spam. They also offer proactive sensing of spam behaviors, she added.
Putting people in prison under unrealistic conditions would be construed as excessive or unusual ...
Next Article in Special Reports
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