Can-Spam Makes Little Impact

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

10 February 2004

E-mail filtering firms have suggested that the Can-Spam Act, which came into force on January 1, has been virtually ineffective in combating the growing tide of unsolicited commercial e-mail.

According to a study conducted by filtering firm, Postini, around 79% of all e-mails processed in January were spam, down slightly from 80% in December 2003.

"The Can-Spam Act appears to have had little immediate effect on the amount of unwanted e-mail offers," the firm's director of product marketing, Andrew Lochart explained to the BBC, continuing:

"Current internet technology allows spammers to hide their identity, such that spam can only be fought through a combination of technology and laws."

It has been suggested that the initiative has failed to have the impact that was achieved by its counterpart, the Federal Trade Commission's 'Do Not Call' list because of the speed with which the anti-spam legislation was swept through Congress.

The Do Not Call legislation was phased in over a number of months, in conjunction with a public education campaign, which meant that by the time the list took effect, more than 50 million households had signed up to it.

Under the terms of the Can-Spam bill, senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail are prohibited from using a false return address, or a misleading subject line. Such e-mails must contain a valid way for those who receive them to 'opt out' of the mailing list, and must also contain the sender's physical address, as well as a clear indication that the message contains advertising material.

In addition, spammers are now explicitly prevented by law from harvesting addresses from web sites, and from hacking into computers to disguise the actual origin of unsolicited e-mails.

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