BusinessWeek: Needed Now: Laws to Can Spam

[Tom]

Good article:

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2002/sb20020926_5958.htm (http://netscape.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/sep2002/sb20020926_5958.htm)

"Spam now accounts for 38% of all e-mail traffic, up from 8% last year"

"Response rates to bulk commercial e-mail are thought to be as low as .005%. That means the typical message appeals to 50 people and annoys 999,950."

[sheila]

What's more, many companies in consumer industries with high marketing costs, such as retail, travel, and insurance, are worried that lawmakers will prevent them from using a powerful ad tool. Amazon.com, the Securities Industry Assn., the Direct Marketing Assn., and others have all lobbied against--and thus far blocked --any federal spam laws. They argue that bulk e-mail gives consumers more choice and lower prices while helping small companies take on big ones. "It is a cheap way to advertise, so the savings can be passed on to the consumer," says Joe Rubin, director of congressional affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

I must say that I am very disappointed to see Amazon.com listed as one of the companies that has lobbied against federal anti-spam laws, although not surprised.

The key is that spam is not about content, it is about permission. No commercial email on any topic should be sent to someone who has not requested it.

Amazon, being a company with such database wizardy, that they can produce online shopping recommendations based on the visitors browsing habits and purchasing record, should certainly have no trouble tracking permissions given to them by people who requested to receive Amazon's email marketing. All I can think of, is laziness or sloppiness in being unwilling to go to the effort to obtain and track such permissions. Which is really sad. If spam is not reigned in and checked, it could well do away with email as a means of effective communication. But Amazon would put their convenience or profit line over preserving this means of communication? Too bad. :(

I wonder how bad it will have to get before it gets better? When spam is over 60% of sent email, will they change their tune?

[lepton]

As if the strain that spam and e-mail alerts are putting on in-boxes weren't enough already, expect even more in the coming years as the overall number of e-mail messages doubles from 31 billion a day now to 60 billion a day by 2006, market researcher IDC predicts.
~# (From a Computer World article (http://computerworld.com/newsletter/0%2C4902%2C74682%2C0.html?nlid=AM ))

[pdstein]

I'm all for laws against spam, but I don't have much hope it will help. The US could pass a law giving the death penalty to spammers - they would just go some other country with no anti-spam laws and continue what they're doing.

[janderk]

I've been thinking about this:

What if we make spam legal?

This all goes under one condition: spam should be clearly recognizable. The email message header should contain a line like: "email type: commercial message".

This would allow end users, isp's, backbone providers to allow or block incoming and/or outgoing commercial messages. Users can choose for a spam friendly ISP or go to one that blocks all this stuff.

Backbone providers would be able to ban spam from their backbone by filtering in the core routers. The market will then decide if spam will survive or not.

Would this be workable or am I being unrealistic?

Jan Derk

[pdstein]

Jan, why would voluntarily put the right header on all their messages so that it can be blocked by most ISPs and individual users??? They already try to circumvent spamming rules by using misleading subject lines and bogus remove procedures. You would still have to have laws to punish those who don't use the special header.

[ryount]

Doesn't California have an anti-spam law that says the subject has to start with "ADV"? That doesn't seem to help much. It would seem like everyone would have to put the ADV subject in since they really don't have a clue where the messages are going.

[janderk]

Originally posted by pdstein:
Jan, why would voluntarily put the right header on all their messages so that it can be blocked by most ISPs and individual users??? They already try to circumvent spamming rules by using misleading subject lines and bogus remove procedures. You would still have to have laws to punish those who don't use the special header. I agree that the viagra and nigerian spams from China won't stop anytime soon, but the not having any spam laws, as the situation generally is right now, is one of the main problems.

Many, including some big name, companenies want to send spam. I'd say: let them if in return they mark their messages. That would at least end the legal fight and get us some law on this subject.

However personally I still prefer spam to be restricted to opt-in only and have all of the perpetrators punished severly.

Jan Derk