Bob Whalen slm521 mc Spam Elective

What is spam?

Spam is the electronic form of junk mail sent by marketers directly to individual users. Spam is unwanted, unsolicited email sent to you by an individual or company that you have had no previous dealings with. Many copies of the same commercial message are posted to multiple online forums and newsgroups. People spam to make money and advertise. Addresses are sold to other spammers. The name comes from a Monty Python comedy sketch in which a person orders Spam (spiced ham from Hormel) and gets piles and piles of other stuff related to Spam. The first spam was sent May 2, 1978 when the Internet was Arpanet when a person sent a message to everyone who had subscribed to the Arpanet.

Why is it a problem?

Junk email is annoying and cost Internet users and Internet businesses millions of dollars each year. Your email address is your investment and your time. Somebody who is sending you junk email is wasting your time and money. It costs the sender almost nothing to use spam, compared to what a junk mailing would cost – thousands of dollars. We all pay for this problem. Our monthly Internet rates are more, and businesses must pay more to advertise on the Internet. The amount of spammers has risen dramatically. One person can send out 100,000 email messages in one day! Currently, there is no legislation that limits what spammers can do, compared to the recent limits on telemarketers.

Spammers can use the Internet Messenger Service and send brief alert messages to users on the system - something that was designed to be useful, rather than annoying. Spammers can scan the web for email addresses. If an email address is written on a web site somewhere, spammers can find it. Spammers use emails of innocent people to send out their spam messages. Some messages are inappropriate for all audiences – e.g. pornography and explicit emails. The bottom line is that this costs spammers nothing and it is unsolicited.

What can you do to prevent spam?

Never respond to spam! Never give them permission to send you information, just like you do with telemarketers. Spammers will place on their site the link “Remove me from your link or email”. Use this link only if you must use this as a last resort out of desperation. In your message ask them to remove you from their address list and state that you will not use the spam advertisers. Beware that the spammer’s option to remove you from their list is a deception to get your real email address. Never respond to Unsubscribe! There is no regulation for spammers to remove you from their lists.

If you get spammed you can complain to your email provider and to spam advertisers. People can also join anti-spam organizations as CAUCE – Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.

What is the government doing about spam?

There are no national laws regulating unsolicited email today. Currently about eighteen states have laws that regulate unsolicited email. You can go to http://law.spamcon.org/us-laws/index.shtml and check your state’s status. People can help the U.S. Government by reporting certain incidents to the correct government agency. For fraudulent spam report to: U.S. Federal Trade Commission uce@ftc.gov. For spam that promotes stocks report to: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement@sec.gov. For spam that contains child pornography report to: FBI, National Center for Missing Children. Chain letters are also illegal. You can report this to the postmaster.

Much spam occurs outside the U.S. so it is difficult to regulate. Legislation is in the works to ban spam and punish those who send it. Laws could prohibit the sending of unsolicited bulk commercial email. Marketers are afraid that legislation would limit their ability to send messages to their customers. It would be best for consumers to have an “opt in” law whereas; marketers would like to see an “opt out” law. The major disadvantage for this is that there are thousands of people to contact for the “opt out” law for the consumer – a consumers’ nightmare. Another concern is how a spam law would be enforced? Currently, the attorney general does not have the manpower to enforce spam laws. A possibility would be to have individuals have the right to recover damages in court. Consumers can be their own watchdogs. Federal law and state law should compliment each other. As you can see, there are still a lot of unanswered questions concerning the government and spam regulation. You should continually educate yourself about the best ways to combat spam.