MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-05-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Spam Fight
|
The Growing Crusade to Slam Spam Enough already, says America, as the
tide of junk e-mail rises exponentially. Now, regulators are cracking down
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Last fall, the server at Cincinnati's Bluespring Software
crashed. E-mail was down for three hours, and CEO Robert B. Daly missed
three meetings because his appointment files had vanished. Says Daly:
"It makes you look ridiculous."
Content Continues Below Ad
The culprit? Spam -- the fast-rising flood of unsolicited junk mail
that's crashing computer systems and provoking howls of outrage from
Internet users coast to coast. Fully half of all e-mail is now spam,
according to Brightmail, the San Francisco maker of spam-blocking
software. Moreover, the junk e-mail increasingly emanates from shady
sources using false identities to flog everything from Viagra and
other drugs to pornography and dubious investments. Of 11 million
spam messages collected by the Federal Trade Commission, 44% came from
phony addresses.
Little surprise, then, that the wave of unwanted e-mail has the business
and tech communities ratcheting up the war on spam. They've launched a
multi-pronged campaign: developing technological weapons against spam,
taking spammers to court, and lobbying for anti-spam legislation. On
Apr. 28, Yahoo! (YHOO ), AOL (AOL ), and MSN (MSFT ) announced a joint
anti-spam offensive that will combine technological and legal measures.
HEAVY COST. Two days later, the FTC convened a brainstorming session
in Washington to drum up other anti-spam measures. Politicians, too,
are getting into the act. On Apr. 29, Virginia enacted a law that
calls for jail time for spammers who hide their identity or send 10,000
copies of an e-mail message, and a flurry of anti-spam bills have been
introduced in Congress.
Why the big move now? Spam's impact on business and consumers
cannot be overstated. Dealing with all that junk e-mail is costing
U.S. organizations $10 billion a year, according to Ferris Research
in San Francisco. Internet service providers are being inundated with
complaints from subscribers about junk mail. And retailers and others
who rely on direct marketing worry that e-mail will be sullied as a
legitimate sales tool. "Long term, if the industry cannot deal with
spam," says Joe Barrett, AOL's senior vice-president for network
operation, "it's going to destroy e-mail."
Of course, this isn't the first attempt to solve the spam problem. Both
AOL and MSN launched upgrades of their Web portals in recent months,
vowing that new spam-blocking software would help stem the flood. But
while AOL and MSN claim they're blocking billions of spam a day, plenty
more is still getting through. As a result, says MSN Vice-President
Brian Arbogast, "we're seeing an amazing backlash from folks who
realize that e-mail is no longer a dependable means of communication
because their messages are treated like spam."
The overarching goal of the AOL-MSN-Yahoo alliance is to make spam
uneconomical by using technology to make it tougher for senders of
junk e-mail to gain access to servers or reach individual in-boxes,
and by filing more lawsuits against the worst violators. "Everything
we do will add to the cost of spammers," Arbogast says.
SPAM SLICERS. Still, those efforts are likely to achieve only moderate
success without stronger federal laws regulating spam. One recently
introduced bill proposed by Senators Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Ron
Wyden (D-Ore.) would make it a crime to send unsolicited commercial
e-mail with false or misleading headers or return addresses. The bill,
which goes before the Senate Commerce Committee this month, also would
allow state attorneys general and the FTC to impose stiff criminal or
civil fines.
The mounting crackdown has legitimate business spooked, especially
direct marketers who count on e-mail to push their products. "There's
a lot of money involved for us," says H. Robert Wientzen, president of
the Direct Marketing Assn. (DMA), whose members include everyone from
the Home Shopping Network to AT&T (T ). That's why the DMA is teaming
up with the FBI and Secret Service to go after mailers responsible
for the most egregious spam.
Clearly, spammers have attracted powerful enemies. No single front will
put all bogus junk mailers out of business. But the coordinated effort
at least raises hopes that the tide will be stemmed, if not reversed.
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