On the one hand, I hate having to wade through 300+ email crap every
day. (I have old, Web published, email addresses from media work. Those
addresses have been harvested and used by spammers -- as I would imagine
many in academia also have a problem with.) It would be nice to only get
email from sources/people I would choose. (I actually remember those
days... back in 1990. Email was almost entirely signal, no noise.)
On the other hand, I don't want to regulate contact through some
Microsoft-driven piece of poor legislation (from political allies like
Hatch). For instance, in Quebec, there is actually talk of licensing
Jehovah Witnesses to stop them from knocking on doors. I can see that as
being, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would put it, "the thin end of the
wedge." Who would _really_ be banned from canvassing?
On the other (third) hand, spammers are, in general, that meshugeneh
petty bourgeois crew I mentioned before. Nothing is going to stop them,
short of death. (Have any of you talked to these guys?)
Ken.
--
Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed
by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by
adults to children, and by children to adults.
-- Thomas Szasz
--- cut here ---
Microsoft Sues 15 Groups in Broad Attack on Spam
By SAUL HANSELL
New York Times
June 18, 2003
Microsoft, the world's largest provider of e-mail accounts, filed
lawsuits yesterday against 15 groups of individuals and companies that
it says collectively sent its clients more than two billion unwanted
e-mail messages.
Unwanted e-mail, commonly called spam, has been a fast-growing problem
for many e-mail users. The Hotmail service from Microsoft, with 140
million users, has been a fat target for spammers.
The company estimates that more than 80 percent of the more than 2.5
billion e-mail messages sent each day to Hotmail users are spam. It now
blocks most of those spam messages.
All of the large Internet service providers, including America Online,
Earthlink and Yahoo, have started filing lawsuits against e-mailers that
they say are sending spam.
Microsoft's suits represent the largest number filed at one time, and
reflect Microsoft's willingness to devote some of its considerable
resources to fighting spam. It promised more such actions to come.
"We at Microsoft are ramping up our efforts to combat spam," said Brad
Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, at a news conference yesterday.
But many spam experts say that these suits do little to actually prevent
spam.
"At the end of the day, this is a drop in the bucket," said Ray
Everett-Church, the chief privacy officer of the ePrivacyGroup, a
consulting company. He said that the several dozen suits against
spammers so far have had no noticeable effect in deterring other
spammers.
"Right now the big service providers see spam as a point of
differentiation," Mr. Everett-Church said. "And these suits are much
more of a marketing campaign than an anti-spam campaign."
Mr. Smith of Microsoft, however, argued that the lawsuits were an
important part of a multipronged approach to fighting spam. In addition
to lawsuits, Microsoft has introduced software to filter out spam for
its MSN Internet access service and will include similar software in the
next release of its Outlook e-mail program.
Twelve of the suits filed yesterday were in state court in Washington.
They brought claims under both the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
and a Washington State anti-spam law. One suit was filed in California
state court, and two were filed in Britain. The defendants include many
different business involved in e-mail marketing.
Email Gold Inc. and NetGold, both of Dayton, Ohio, are accused of using
spam to sell tools for other marketers to get into the spam business.
VMS Inc. and Proform4life Inc., both of Port Richey, Fla., are accused
of trying to sell human growth hormone.
RHC Direct of Murray, Utah, is accused of selling videotapes to enhance
job hunting skills using misleading subject headers.
VMS and Email Gold could not be reached for comment.
Robert Caldwell, the president of RHC, denied that his firm was sending
spam. All of the recipients of the messages that it sends have requested
marketing material, he said. Moreover, all of the messages identify the
sender's address and phone number.
"They could have picked up the phone to call us rather than filing a
lawsuit," Mr. Caldwell said, noting that he has not had any discussions
about the offending e-mail with Microsoft. "All this will do is
undermine the ability of legitimate marketers to stand up and say this
is what we are doing."
In some cases, Microsoft was not able to identify the sender of the
spam. It filed several suits against unnamed John Doe defendants. That
tactic allows it to use subpoenas and other techniques to try to
identify the senders.
Over the last nine months, Microsoft has diverted some of its
investigators who normally track down software counterfeiters to
tracking down spammers.
The spam lawsuits mainly challenge aspects of the e-mail messages that
Microsoft contends are fraudulent, like deceptive return addresses and
subject lines. Microsoft does not argue that sending mail that is
unsolicited, but otherwise honest, should be banned.
David Sorkin, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago,
argues that focusing on fraud will not eliminate most of the messages
that annoy e-mail users.
"As we clean up the spam, we will leave the door open to more and more
nonfraudulent spam, and that will be much worse," he said, adding that a
result will be much more unwanted e-mail than users now receive.
