Spam has always been a nuisance, but it's become a huge growth "industry" over the last year. Turns out that some straws are finally starting to break some camel backs, and regulators and politicians are starting to get pissed off about it all to actually do something about it.
Personally, I'd like to see the look on Wayne Mansfield's face if/when laws finally prevent him from being such an internet parasite. :-) http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6375014%255E15306,00.html US wants to ban spam David Ho in Washington May 03, 2003 WEEKS after the Australian government flagged new anti-spam laws, US regulators have vowed to take swift action against bulk unsolicited email. "Things are worse than we imagined," said Eileen Harrington, the Federal Trade Commission's director of marketing practices, at the end of a three-day forum in Washington. "There is consensus that the problem has reached a tipping point. If there are not immediate improvements implemented across the board by technologists, service providers and perhaps lawmakers, email is at risk of being run into the ground." The Australian federal Government last month said it would move to introduce anti-spam laws "as quickly as possible". Ms Harrington said that was the impression left by the dozens of technology experts, government officials, industry executives and lawyers who flocked to Washington to discuss the problem of unwanted commercial email and what to do about it. In March, 45 per cent of all email sent was spam, according to Brightmail, the San Francisco-based anti-spam company. That's up from 16 per cent in January 2002. Most of the panelists at the FTC forum on Friday agreed that a strong federal anti-spam law is needed and would be better than the mix of local laws now in 29 states. Steve Richter, an attorney with the E-mail Marketing Association, said the current patchwork of laws is confusing and harmful. He gave the example of a Washington state resident who receives spam from New York relayed through a computer in Nevada. "What law can you tell either of the parties - the sender or the recipient - to follow?" he said. Virginia enacted the harshest US anti-spam laws on Tuesday, giving authorities the power to seize assets earned from sending bulk unsolicited email pitches while imposing up to five years in prison. Californian representative Zoe Lofgren said this week she would seek federal legislation offering rewards for individuals who help track down spammers, while New York Senator Charles Schumer, proposed a national "do-not-spam" registry similar to an FTC service that is to begin blocking unwanted telemarketing calls later this year. A pending anti-spam bill proposed by Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore, would require spam to have valid return addresses. Some were skeptical that the federal proposals would do the job. "New laws that are unenforceable for myriad reasons or that are overtaken by the advances of technology have the potential to do more harm than good," FTC commissioner Orson Swindle said. "No single law, no single new technology, no new initiative, no new meetings are going to solve this problem alone." John Patrick, chairman of the industry-supported Global Internet Project, said any U.S. law would do little to stop spam from other countries and the only solution is blocking it with new technology. Earlier this week, AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a joint initiative to combat spam through techniques such as identifying and restricting messages with deceptive headers. Persistent spammers have found ways to dodge similar obstacles. Ms Harrington said the automated tools spammers use to "harvest" email addresses are "far more efficient and effective than we knew." "Spammers are provided with an endless menu of new and fresh email addresses to send to," she said. "That accounts for a good deal of the exponential increase in volume." In 2001, the FTC received 10,000 junk emails each day forwarded by complaining consumers. The agency now receives 130,000 messages daily. Other topics during the forum included the potential for spam to migrate to the screens of cell phones and the effect of spam in other countries. Motohiro Tsuchiya, a communications professor with the International University of Japan, said Friday that about 80 per cent of spam in Japan comes from outside the country and most of it is in English. "We are now importing more spam from the United States," he joked. "We are actually learning what American culture is through spam." -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sent from the Apple PowerBook G4 of: Phillip McGree Web: http://www.phil.net.au Perth, Western Australia http://chat.iinet.net.au Mobile Phone: 0418 922 500 Macs for sale - new and secondhand http://mac.iinet.net.au Disclaimer: This transmission is intended for people that have functioning eyesight and literacy. If you have no eyesight, or can't read, please disregard this email. Thank you.
