A bill attempting to regulate the sending of unsolicited
commercial e-mail passed in the US Senate last week will have
little impact on the amount of spam coming into e-mail users'
in-boxes antispam advocates have claimed.
The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and
Marketing (Can-Spam) Act requires e-mail users to opt out of
unwanted commercial e-mail, instead of requiring e-mail senders to
get opt-in permission.
The bill can do little to stem the tide of spam coming from
outside the US, said antispam technologies companies and at least
one consumer advocacy group.
The bill gives consumers little control over spam, said Ray
Everett-Church, counsel for the Coalition Against Unsolicited
Commercial Email (Cauce).
Everett-Church said he was encouraged that the final version of
the bill included an amendment requiring the US Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) to study the possibility of a national do-not-spam
e-mail registry, but the bill only authorises the agency to create
such a list.
A law Congress passed in 1991 authorised the Federal
Communications Commission to create a national do-not-call
telemarketing registry, and it only went into effect earlier this
month Everett-Church noted.
The FTC has expressed concerns about creating and maintaining a
massive do-not-spam list, and the opt-out approach of Can-Spam
"legalises" spammers to send out e-mail until they are told to
stop, he claimed.
"I'm deeply concerned that we may never see a do-not-e-mail
list, and until such a time as we do, we will see an unlimited
right to see spam," he added
Can-Spam includes a requirement that commercial e-mail include
valid opt-out mechanisms and allows fines of up to $100 per piece
of spam sent with misleading header information, with fines up to
$3m allowed for some types of spam.
But Everett-Church questioned whether law enforcement agencies
would have the time to go after spammers without larger budgets for
enforcement, which Can-Spam does not provide. The FTC and state
attorneys general would be responsible for most spam enforcement
under the bill.
The bill's cosponsors, Senators Conrad Burns and Ron Wyden,
defended the bill, saying it was a necessary weapon in the fight
against unsolicited commercial e-mail. Technology will also need to
play a part in eliminating spam, but Can-Spam should send a "strong
message" to spammers, a Burns spokeswoman said.
"No legislation will be a silver bullet against spam, but the
Burns-Wyden legislation gives consumers considerable control over
the e-mail coming to their in-boxes by backing up the law's
requirements with stiff civil and criminal penalties," a
spokeswoman for Wyden said. "This is a good step toward taking back
the internet from the 'kingpin spammers' - the worst actors of the
online world."
Not surprisingly, antispam technology companies agreed that
technology needs to be part of the solution, with some suggesting
that antispam technologies will go further to help e-mail
users.
Dave Jevans, senior vice president of marketing at Tumbleweed
Communications, an e-mail firewall supplier, said the law is a step
in the right direction, and can help set a moral tone against
spam.
However, he added that Can-Spam will not be enforceable, because
it is difficult to validate the identify of any internet user and
because a large percentage of spam comes from outside the US.
Can-Spam might make some potential spammers think twice before
getting in the business, but the amount of spam sent is doubling
about every two months.
Jevans called for a blend of legislative and technological
approaches to fighting spam, including requiring that e-mail carry
a digital signature establishing the identity of the sender.
Pete Privateer, senior vice president for product strategy and
marketing at Internet Security Systems, a security and antispam
company, said the bill might stop legitimate marketers from
employing spam techniques, but would do nothing to stop hackers
from using spam as a tool for identity theft.
"This bill is like trying to write a law to ban viruses,"
Privateer said. "It's just about that effective. I expect the
volume of traffic in your in-box to increase."
But Al DiGuido, chief executive officer of Bigfoot Interactive,
a provider of e-mail marketing services, said Can-Spam would, at
least, clear up the confusion of more than 30 state laws dealing
with spam.
"We're really excited about federal guidelines that will put an
end to all the chaos and confusion on a state-by-state basis," he
added.
DiGuido recommended that reputable marketers work on a fee-based
e-mail system, where they pay a small fee to internet service
providers to create "white lists" - lists of commercial entities
permitted to send e-mails - to ensure that their messages are
delivered.
"There will be some real teeth put behind the law that will
impose jail terms and significant penalties from a dollars and
cents standpoint," he said. "We also think ... the criminal element
has been trying to evade the law for some time now, so they'll
continue to try to find ways to evade the law."
Grant Gross writes for IDG News Service