Even if I have a free Internet account, I have to remember that in most parts of the world, including India, local calls are not free, and as a result maintain the ISP accounts become quite expensive. For an example, suppose a company set up a mail server in India to provide free e-mail accounts to all of its employees. Taking all costs into account, it cost the company roughly two to three cents to send or receive e-mail. It doesn't sound like much, but when we calculate, it seems a reasonable figure. A recent survey that polled several ISPs estimated that 30 percent of the mail coming into and going out of their servers was junk mail. Now suppose the company sends and receives three thousand e-mails a day, and if only ten percent of which is Spam. This company has to pay $180 a month extra just for the privilege of receiving junk mail. Translated into rupees, that comes to six thousand rupees a month (is quite a reasonable amount). For what it's worth, that's about thirty percent of an Indian's average monthly salary. Unlike postal mail, for which the entire cost is borne by the marketer, there is generally no per-message charge to send e-mail: It's included in our ISP's bill (or is free). This is excellent for people who want to keep in touch with friends and relatives, but the economics naturally lend themselves to abuse. All a Spammer needs to send out a million messages is, an Internet account, a list of e-mail addresses of various people, and a computer. Apart from this cost there are also administrative cost. Users who receive this unwanted mail are forced to waste time just for reading and deleting these unwanted messages. For Example If a vendor send out two million messages and it takes four seconds to delete each message then total cost for this mailing would be thousands of person hours lost time. So my concern is spamming is bad and unethical because it junks up our mailbox. Like most people, we pay for our Internet connection either by the hour or the month. Some people even have to pay local toll calls or long-distance fees to access their Internet Service Provider’s dialup number. Every extra second we spend online downloading junk e-mail is money out of our pocket. Unlike junk mail, we pay the cost of receiving junk e-mail. Moreover, if we get so much junk e-mail, that we exceed the space what our ISP allots for our mail then, we can't get any more mail until we personally delete the junk by hand. Until we do, any mail we get will be bounced back to the sender with an error message.
Conclusion
The problem of Internet spamming will, to a large degree, will eventually solve itself. As the Internet evolves and computer technology advances the ability of users to ignore spam will make spamming a relatively useless practice. Through the development of sound marketing techniques resourceful entrepreneurs will be able to approach consumers in a way that is both profitable and acceptable to the majority of computer users.
The use of spamming can be done in an ethical manner as long as the service or item that is being advertised is legitimate and not fraudulent in nature. The thing that causes spam to be unethical is when someone tries to take advantage of a group of people who probably do not know better and this to me is a crime in itself. There are alternatives to the way spam is being done at the moment. For Example: -Sanford Wallace created a site SmartBotPro.Net, if someone visit the site he can view different items being advertised and only after his or her (the visitor) consent will unsolicited email be sent to them. This site can be seen at
References
Link to: The decision Big Fine for Spamming AOL Members. BY BRUCE
BALESTIER New York Law Journal Tuesday, December 14, 1999. ...
Description: AOL sues Christian Brothers for spamming. [New York Law Journal]
AOL Tries To Slam Spam Files Multimillion Dollar Suit Against Bulk Email Company;Web Giant Cites 200,000 Complaints Of Porn Related Spam; Still No Federal Law ...
Jeffrey Benner"> ... LOOK FOR, Wired News. ... Fixing a Hole Where Spam Comes In By Jeffrey
Benner 2:00 am July 19, 2001 PDT. ...
G.W.Kenneth. (1997). Ethics, Computing, and Medicine: Informatics and the Transformation of Health Care. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge: New York.
When Tragedy Hits, So Does Spam Two hours after Tuesday's terrorist attacks, a New Hampshire woman is enticed to a porn site with the promise of "no terrorists...
SmartBotPRO.NET The Original Free Auto-Followup Auto responder Network We apologize
but we are no longer offering new accounts. We highly recommend that you ...
Farhad Manjoo"> ... LOOK FOR, Wired News. ... Spam, Or Just Glad to See Me? By Farhad
Manjoo 2:00 am May 24, 2001 PDT. ...
Turban. E., Mc Lean. E., Wetherbe. J. (1999). Information Technology for Management.2nd edn. John Wylie & Sons: NY.
Weckert, J. & Adeney.D. (1997). COMPUTER AND INFORMATION ETHICS. Greenwood Press. London
Home > Media & Marketing > Article THE INDUSTRY STANDARD MAGAZINE Who's Spamming
Whom? By Jackie Cohen Aug 20 1999 12:00 AM PDT Meet the spammers, those..
July 27, 2001, ... Home > Media & Marketing > Article, OPINION:
JAMES FALLOWS Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam. ...
The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette - by Arlene Rinaldi. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR COMPUTER ETHICS. From the Computer Ethics Institute. ...
Article In Newspaper And Magazines
AOL TRIES TO SLAM SPAM
Files Multimillion-Dollar Suit Against Bulk Email Company
Web Giant Cites 200,000 Complaints Of Porn Related Spam
Still No Federal Law Banning Nusance E-mail
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Michigan
(CBS) America Online has filed a lawsuit accusing a Michigan computer-mail company of sending unsolicited pornographic e-mail messages its to customers.
The Internet service giant said in its lawsuit that Millennium Gold rush Technologies earned $120,000 in commissions from adult-oriented Internet sites for "driving customers to their Web pages."
More than 200,000 complaints have been lodged by AOL users about the sexually explicit bulk advertisements, the company said.
AOL sued Millennium and its Bloomfield Hills operators on March 28 in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
"If it has an 'XXX' or dollar sign in the subject line, it has to be junk mail," said Gerard Mantese, an attorney who uses AOL. "You get much more junk mail over the Internet than you do in your U.S. mailbox because it doesn't cost as much."
The suit says the small home office based company used techniques to "hide their true identities and frustrate AOL's ability to detect and filter" the e-mails. Some messages appeared as though they came from an AOL user, the suit said.
It also accuses the company of "hacking into the e-mail accounts of others and then using those hacked accounts to transmit unsolicited bulk e-mail."
They referred people to Web sites such as studcafe.com or youngchicks.com, the 17-page suit said.
Gregory Adams, one of the parties sued has declined to comment on the case.
AOL seeks millions of dollars in damages, without specifying a total, and asks for a preliminary injunction to stop the Millenium from sending bulk mail.
The practice of sending unwanted e-mail messages, known as spamming, has been the subject of several lawsuits. AOL has filed more than 40 suits nationwide and has won at least 10 court judgments.
Unsolicited offers for cancer cures, phony college diplomas, low-cost Viagra, discount CDs, get-rich-quick schemes, hair-restorers, time-shares, herbal remedies and quickie mortgages clog e-mail accounts and slow computer networks.
Rich D'Amato of AOL said his company has spent "tens of millions of dollars" fighting spam.
"Our goal is to go after the larger spammers," he told The Detroit News.
Fifteen states have laws to protect computer users from junk e-mail. However, most of the recent AOL cases have been filed under the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but the measure doesn't explicitly ban junk e-mail.
A bipartisan bill, dubbed the "Can Spam Act," was introduced in June by U.S. Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif. If passed it would make junk e-mail illegal.
BIG FINE FOR SPAMMING AOL MEMBERS
New York Law Journal Tuesday, December 14, 1999 BY BRUCE BALESTIER
A QUEENS-BASED group that markets apricot seeds as a cancer cure over the Internet has been hit with more than $600,000 in damages for clogging the computer systems of America Online Inc. with the transmission of millions of the unsolicited e-mail messages known as "spam."
Southern District Magistrate Judge Henry Pitman, in a recommendation stemming from a default judgment entered against the group, the Christian Brothers, and its president, Jason Vale, ruled that AOL was entitled to recover for unjust enrichment, since Christian Brothers unlawfully used the AOL mark and misappropriated services that otherwise could have been sold to advertisers.
He also issued a permanent injunction in America Online v. The Christian Brothers, 98 Civ. 8959, barring the group from using AOL's network and trademark.
"The Defendants' transmission of unsolicited bulk e-mail to AOL has damaged, and, if unabated, will continue to damage, AOL's business, its goodwill, and its relationship with its members," Magistrate Judge Pitman wrote. "AOL's valuable trademark and service mark and associated goodwill are diluted and damaged by their wrongful association with junk e-mail and junk e-mailers like The Defendants."
The default judgment had been entered by Southern District Judge Deborah A. Batts in June, after Christian Brothers failed to answer or move against AOL's complaint. Judge Batts then referred the matter to Magistrate Judge Pitman to conduct an inquest and make a recommendation on damages.
According to Magistrate Judge Pitman's findings of fact, Christian Brothers, which operates from an address in Whitestone, Queens, touted apricot seeds as a cancer cure through numerous registered Internet sites, including "heavenlyhealing.com," "apricotsfromgod.com," "canceranswer.com" and "eatseeds.com."
Since 1997, the report said, Christian Brothers had unlawfully obtained mailing lists of the e-mail addresses of AOL members and sent more than 20 million messages to them using AOL's computer networks. The unsolicited messages, which included fraudulent headers misrepresenting that the messages came from aol.com, provided links to Web sites where the apricot seeds and related books and videotapes were for sale.
After receiving thousands of complaints from its members, AOL sent a cease-and-desist letter to Christian Brothers in February 1998. When the so-called "spamming" persisted, AOL filed suit last December.
In a telephone conversation this January, Mr. Vale told AOL's counsel, Jeffrey M. Eilender, of Schlam Stone & Dolan, that Christian Brothers was inclined to default. Ignoring the lawsuit entirely, the group continued to transmit bulk unsolicited e-mails over AOL's network.
In addition, according to the report, Christian Brothers responded to an attempt by AOL's process server to hand-deliver AOL's motion for a default judgment by throwing the papers out the door.
Judge Batts entered the default judgment against Christian Brothers and Mr. Vale in June and referred the case to Magistrate Judge Pitman for a recommendation on damages.
Acting only on the basis of AOL's written submissions after Christian Brothers and Mr. Vale again declined to respond, Magistrate Judge Pitman found that AOL was due $17,940 in hardware processing costs; treble damages of $389,020 for lost advertising revenue; $24,625 in attorney's fees; and $200,000 in punitive damages.
He also found that a permanent injunction prohibiting Christian Brothers from using AOL's networks and mark was a necessity, given the group's history of non-compliance.
"Given the Defendants' conduct in (a) ignoring AOL's cease and desist requests, (b) attempting [to] hide the source of their bulk e-mail to evade AOL's filters, (c) receiving notice of every pleading and motion filed by AOL and ignoring each of these documents and every aspect of the judicial process in this case, and (d) continuing to transmit unsolicited bulk e-mail to AOL members even after being held in default, only an injunction, with its potential sanction of contempt, and punitive damages, will deter the Defendants from their unlawful conduct," Magistrate Judge Pitman wrote.
Mr. Eilender, of Schlam Stone & Dolan, represented AOL. Christian Brothers and Mr. Vale did not retain counsel.
Source:-
Spam Spam Spam Spam Spam
By Farhad Manjoo
2:00 a.m. May 25, 2001 PDT
SAN FRANCISCO -- If there's one heartening thing about the unsolicited e-mail problem, it's that there are smart people working to solve it.
This isn't one of those hopeless-seeming scourges where interested parties drag their feet in finding a solution -- global warming, say. When it comes to spam, there's broad consensus -- among consumers, ISPs and some lawmakers -- that something has to be done about it. And, fortunately, some things are being done.
But that doesn't mean all is bright on the anti-spam front. It's clear from the opening day of Spamcon -- the anti-spam conference occurring here this week -- that there are, dedicated spam-fighters out in the world. But it's also clear that they're fighting a losing battle, trying to plug a river with their fingertips.
Spam, Or Just Glad to See Me?
By Farhad Manjoo
2:00 a.m. May 24, 2001 PDT
Wired News might be a respected and well-read Web publication, but judging from the e-mail that flows into the inboxes here, the site has a serious image problem: People think Wired News has a small penis.
About once a week, on average, reporters and editors at WN receive offers to enlarge the site's penis by between one and four inches, usually through a safe, "natural" procedure that requires no more than seven minutes of work per day. More often than not, these methods are free of "pumps and pills," and are bolstered by a money-back guarantee.
Now, for obvious reasons, Wired News is not in need of a larger penis. And that's a big problem with spam. It's not just that every unsolicited message reeks of unseemliness -- it's that the messages aren't going just to the folks who need them, and they're instead flooding us all, with no apparent method to the madness.
When Tragedy Hits, So Does Spam
By Linda Formichelli
2:00 a.m. Sep. 13, 2001 PDT
Before the rubble had even stopped smoking from Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C., spammers were trying to capitalize on the tragedy.
"No terrorists here! Join our porn site, turn off the TV, quit watching the crap happening in the states and join our free site!" cried one e-mail that landed in the inbox of Julie Datres of Marlboro, New Hampshire, just two hours after the initial attack.
"I can't believe people would take advantage of such a tragic situation to push porn," Datres said.
Fixing a Hole Where Spam Comes In
By Jeffrey Benner
2:00 a.m. July 19, 2001 PDT
ISPs are battling rogue spammers lurking in the back alleys and hidden corners of their networks. As the fighting heats up, more and more legitimate e-mail is getting blocked along with the junk.
"It's a guerrilla war that has been escalating for years," said Ray Everett Church, a spokesman for Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE).
Source: -
Who's Spamming Whom?
THE INDUSTRY STANDARD MAGAZINE: By Jackie Cohen
Aug 20 1999 12:00 AM PDT
Meet the spammers, those furtive and reviled entrepreneurs who make a living clogging your inbox with junk e-mail.
You could get rich, download nude pictures of celebrities, buy penny stocks or start your own business. That's what [email protected] says. How the heck did she get your e-mail address? You, of course, are the victim of spam, unwanted e-mail sent in bulk to strangers, the moral equivalent in Internet culture of throwing spitballs.
When it comes via the postal service, you can usually trace junk mail back to some catalog purchase or magazine subscription. If you don't want it, you can tell the post office to stop sending it. But spam is a plague on those with e-mail addresses, as well as a burden on the bandwidth, disk space and server resources of Internet service providers. To combat it, an entire industry of antispam software vendors has emerged. But as soon as somebody figures out a way to filter the e-mail out, the spammers figure out a way to get around the filter.
Because sending spam is a semiunderground industry, actual revenue figures aren't to be found. But there sure is a lot of it. GartnerGroup, a consultancy in Stamford, Conn., says that 84 percent of Internet users have received spam. (Not surprisingly, 63 percent of the recipients say they "dislike it a lot," 20 percent "dislike it somewhat," 14 percent are neutral and only 3 percent like it in any way.)
Spam, a tacky marketing tool, seems to be used effectively by tacky businesses. A company called the International License Bureau, for example, based in Junction City, Kan. (although a call to the number listed on their e-mail reaches a telemarketer in Los Angeles), offers a multinational driver's license on a five-year contract for $50 a year, plus $10 a year toward the bureau's use of an issuing address in the Bahamas. The telemarketer, Bob Stevens, says the company not only spams, but advertises in the back of the National Enquirer.
As customers and Internet service providers have grown more irate, lawmakers have gotten busy, setting off a flurry of antispam legislation. Washington, California, Virginia and Nevada have all enacted laws regarding "commercial e-mail." Other legislation is pending in 18 states, and it's only a matter of time before a federal law is passed. GartnerGroup sounds the alarm: "If spam continues to grow at the current rate, if not exponentially, it may become an unmanageable issue. Customer ire is certain to increase with that onslaught, and ISPs will be faced with additional customer-service costs as they seek to control the flow of unwelcome e-mail while dealing with unhappy customers."
"We're not cockroaches crawling under the four corners of the carpet," says Brian Rasmus, president of Timely Products. "There are fly-by-nights in any industry, but we're very ethical and aboveboard. This is a nice business with low overhead." Timely Products specializes in mass e-mail, and is headquartered in a location Rasmus would not disclose. For $100, the company will send your marketing message to 100,000 addresses; Rasmus says he has 2 million addresses to choose from.
Timely Products is one of many companies devoted to making it easy for people to send spam. Some companies, including Timely Products, will do it all: Supply the e-mail addresses and send out the message. For do-it-yourselfers, there are vendors that sell the software to snag e-mail addresses off the Web; vendors that sell lists of e-mail addresses already "farmed"; vendors that sell software for sending out tons of e-mail at once.
A call to one of those spam ads touting bulk e-mail services reaches Paulann Anderson, proprietor of JetMail in northern Maine (she would not say which town). She's vacuuming, but she shuts off the machine to talk.
"I'm a one-woman business," she explains. "About three years ago, I participated in one of those multilevel marketing letters [via e-mail]. I learned how to get things mailed out and, in talking to the bulk e-mailers, I got interested in it. Once I made money on it, I decided to go into the business full time." Now, she's "smiling all the way to the bank," although she won't reveal specific details as to how profitable she is.
Anderson's business is fairly straightforward. For just $89, Anderson will electronically send a letter to 100,000 addresses - you write the letter and forward it to her, she takes care of the rest. For $165, your message goes to 200,000 people. Plus, on special this month, Anderson says, you get an additional 50,000 free mailings with every order. (The special does not apply to targeted mailing lists. The rate for shared demographic information is $250 for 100,000 addresses.)
It's clear that Anderson thinks she's talking with a customer, but when she finds out it's a journalist on the other end of the line, she slams down the phone. "I don't have time for this," she says before the click.
"Some people in this business make $30,000 a month," says James Whelan, CEO of a company called E-mail King and Associates, in Ontario, Canada. "They'll never make bulk e-mailing illegal. It's an effective means of marketing. I got 53 signups for a long-distance company [I was marketing for] in one week. Tell me that people don't like bulk e-mail. What gives it a bad name are the idiots who don't honor the 'remove-me' requests - and porn e-mail."
Whelan and Rasmus point out that people can reply and ask to be removed from their mailing lists. Other spammers, however, will forge their return addresses, so that when you hit reply, the message comes back to you. Still others direct you to a voice-mail box that's perpetually full. But the numbers are there in compliance with California, Washington and Virginia state laws that mandate such measures.
Rasmus claims ISPs aren't really upset about the traffic jams "bulk e-mailers" like himself create, but about the fact that e-mail marketing is an alternative to buying banner ads. Spam represents advertising revenue that the ISPs aren't getting. He insists this is why America Online (dossier) has so aggressively sued spammers and lobbied for antispam legislation. He also alleges that AOL is considering starting its own commercial e-mail service - a claim that AOL denies.
Why you? at some point, you may have unwittingly asked for spam. When you check a box on a Web-site registration form that says you'd like to get information on a topic, you've just "opted in," the term for agreeing to accept commercial e-mail. (Conversely, some Web sites consider you opted in if you neglect to check a box to specifically "opt out" of any promotional messages.)
The site operator can then sell your address to a mailing-list broker, opening the floodgates and making you fair game for anyone who puts together targeted and untargeted lists for sale. ISPs do not sell their Web addresses, because ISPs don't want to contribute to the spamming of their own customers.
But, chances are, you're just receiving e-mail from out of the blue, without signing up for anything. If a spammer doesn't want to buy a list from a list broker, he can buy spidering software from one of several major vendors or thousands of resellers. Vendors tend to use large numbers of resellers, sometimes in pyramid-scheme arrangements, to confuse and complicate trails to the source. Using a technique similar to that used by a search engine, the spidering software will search newsgroups and the Web, looking for the tell-tale signs of an e-mail address: the @ symbol and .com, .edu or .org within the same string of characters.
While the technology for spamming is not very expensive - Anderson says that buying software and tools runs about $1,500 - it still may be easier to use a third party, because spamming, while legal, is still something of a covert activity. A spammer must subscribe to a bulk-friendly ISP and probably juggle several accounts. The more you can make it look like you're not hogging traffic, the better. ISPs get upset when someone causes an e-mail traffic jam, and they've been known to close down accounts or even sue.
Spam was born in the early '90s, when the internet was the province of a small, polite community that took great pains to protect their lines of communication. Sanford Wallace and his company, CyberPromotions, broke the taboo. He signed on a bunch of clients with products to sell, dredged up a slew of addresses and blasted out marketing e-mail.
Ultimately, the company was hit with 13 lawsuits from ISPs angered by the traffic problems Wallace caused and the ill will he inspired in their customers. The company spent 1995 through 1998 in litigation, with at least three cases pending at any one time. Eight of the lawsuits resulted in expensive judgments against CyberPromotions, including one for $2 million; the combined damages were so costly that the company was effectively forced out of business.
Wallace claims the lawsuits were the best thing that ever happened to him, or the Internet. By acting as the fall guy, he says, he helped the nation figure out what constitutes ethical e-mail marketing and enact laws that prohibit unethical practices. "There were a lot of precedent-setting cases," he says. "With CyberPromotions, I thought, 'If it works in the real world, why not e-mail?' But it failed. I learned that on the Internet the rules change. You can't do things that people don't want."
America Online, the first to sue Wallace, has since filed over 40 suits against spammers, with 12 cases currently pending. While it might be less costly simply to close their accounts, AOL sues spammers in the hope that a hefty judgment will put them out of business. Causes of action can include copyright and trademark violations; trespassing; torts; violations of contracts; and violations of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it illegal to use someone else's computer or network without their authorization. "Our aim is to impose the real costs of spamming on the spammer," says Randall Boe, associate general counsel at AOL.
The AOL suit against Sanford Wallace started, in fact, with a Sanford Wallace suit against AOL. After getting stuck with a batch of undeliverable mail, one day AOL sent it all back to him. "It freaked him out," says Boe. "So he sued us, claiming that we sent him an e-mail bomb that was undeliverable. We countersued, and then we were off to the races."
AOL claimed that Wallace was clogging its pipelines with undeliverable mail and annoying customers with unwanted messages. Wallace, like the spammer-defendants who followed, claimed he had a First Amendment right to send spam, and that it was a violation of antitrust laws for AOL to block him from sending spam.
After pursuing direct e-mailers for a while, AOL tried a different tack. While still targeting people with something to sell, AOL started going after the makers of spamware, the software used to extract e-mail addresses and gush out messages in bulk. The company is currently searching for the makers of Stealth E-mailer and Floodgate, software designed to evade an ISP's attempts to block out spam.
AOL successfully chased down Neil Bala, who sold two spamware products, FloodGate and GoldRush, using a pyramid scheme. Bala sold to people who in turn sold to others, and so on. "Now we're going after them all," says Boe. "We home in on a couple of candidates by monitoring e-mail traffic. And then we have a team of investigators to locate them physically. After that, we file the lawsuit and then serve them the legal complaint in person."
But finding spammers isn't always easy. A case in point: Vernon Hale operated Prime Data World Systems out of a mobile home in Kentucky. When he heard that AOL's legal department was after him, Boe says Hale simply drove off. But he kept calling AOL lawyers from the road, explaining that he was out of the spam business for good. "It was a cat-and-mouse game," recalls Boe. "I told him, 'We need to discuss this. Can I fax you some papers?' But he would not give us a fax number." AOL could not supply contact information for any of these defendants, so the stories could not be corroborated.
In another case, Boe says a spammer who phoned in to negotiate turned out to be a police officer calling from his department. The cop begged to end the suit, on any terms named by AOL, and a settlement was reached.
Another spam suit resulted in a literal swamp drama. After AOL handed legal papers to Gulf Coast Marketing of Baton Rouge, La., the two brothers who formed the company went berserk, says Boe. One announced to AOL that the other had dumped the company's computers in the swamp so they couldn't be used as evidence. The brother who dumped the computers ultimately cooperated, allegedly after the first brother ran off with his wife.
AOL lawyers will typically send a cease-and-desist letter before filing a suit. Another pair of brothers, Damien and Joe Melle, replied to the letter with a threat: They claimed to have 10 million AOL addresses on a CD-ROM, and they promised to release it for free to the entire world if AOL's attorneys didn't back down.
AOL didn't flinch. "The interesting aspect to that story was the Internet community's reaction to it," says Boe. "There was a lot of anger over how these guys held e-mail addresses hostage. People sent the brothers death threats, and even a bag of burning dog feces." AOL ultimately broke them; the Melle brothers claimed to be destitute, and each brother's case is proceeding separately.
A few states with strong antispam lobbies have enacted legislation against bulk e-mailers, most focusing on unsavory tactics rather than on banning the practice outright. The law in Virginia, home state of AOL, effectively covers the majority of all online accounts because AOL holds the lion's share of Internet access, with the majority of all online accounts in the United States. The state legislature just enacted the Virginia Computer Crime Act, which makes it illegal to falsify headers in e-mail and to distribute software primarily designed to falsify. Penalties are $15 per mail item, or $10,000 per business day - enough to put a spammer out of business. The law went into effect July 1.
Other state laws also tend to limit, rather than outlaw, spam, following the model used to wipe out fax advertising. Nevada and California, for instance, prohibit sending e-mail to people who haven't already expressed consent, or with whom the sender does not have a prior business relationship. California additionally requires that the phrase "ADV" be written in the subject line, and that the e-mail include either an 800 number or an e-mail address to contact for removal from the mailing list. Washington state, like Virginia, bans the use of a forged return address or domain name.
Federal legislation is imminent. The challenge is to be neither too strict nor too lenient. "We don't want to begin down that slippery slope of regulating the Internet to death," says Ken Johnson, a spokesman for Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), who chairs the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. "History has shown that once the federal government gets its foot in the door, they take over your house. The hackers and the spammers are always one step ahead of us no matter what we do. Plus, there are legitimate First Amendment concerns when it comes to restricting e-mail. And enacting such a law requires striking a balance between those who want no laws on the Internet, and those who want complete bans of illicit practices."
Five bills were introduced in the House and Senate over the past year, but all died, because the legislators couldn't reach agreement before the end of the session. Recently reincarnated in the Senate was the Inbox Privacy Act. It resembles Virginia's law, prohibiting fraudulent return addresses and subject lines. (Spammers are often creative with subject lines, using things like "Re: Your Web site," "Hi" and other familiar terms to trick people into reading e-mail.)
Requiring honest subject lines would help ISPs and domain owners filter spam from their networks so consumers would never even see the stuff. "This would be a domainwide opt out," explains Joe Keely, a legislative aide in the office of Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), the sponsor of the bill. "This would be enforced by the FTC, state attorneys general or the ISPs themselves - who could sue spammers for damages of up to $50,000 a day."
So far, few businesses have responded to the growing outcry against spam, except in a token manner. In March, for example, Earthonline, a leading e-mail-related software manufacturer in Redmond, Wash., discontinued GeoList Professional, a product that harvests e-mail addresses, because, they say, they were shocked - shocked! - to find that it was being used for spamming. Company officials sent out a letter to customers and resellers explaining that GeoList was intended to create targeted lists of e-mail addresses - that is, focusing on specific states or regions.
"We have had reports of customers using this product as a nontargeted spam-list-collection tool," the letter stated. "We do not condone or promote spam as a way to market products. However, with reports of how the GeoList product is being used, it is our decision to make GeoList a discontinued product as of March 8, 1999."
However, the company still offers around a dozen more products, including Nitro, a tool that extracts e-mail addresses from 28 different search engines, and DirectMail, which can divvy up an existing ISP account into 30 different e-mail addresses - a convenient way to camouflage an unseemly amount of outgoing e-mail. "It's a very lucrative service to get into," says Ken Bailey, sales manager for the company.
Spam won't disappear. it's cheap, and it works. Among spam's biggest supporters are the call-center staff who answer the phone number listed on a widely circulated spam touting "Human Growth Hormone Available Now Without a Prescription, Biggest Medical Breakthrough in Fat Loss & Anti-Aging in the 20th Century." [It's unlikely you can buy such a product without a prescription.]
"We get so many customers, you can't even count 'em," says customer rep Louis John, who wouldn't reveal his company's name. "People are responding to the e-mail like crazy. Human Growth Hormone is a great product." John notes that the call center he works for provides order fulfillment for a multitude of tiny companies selling a variety of odd gift items - many of which market their services via spam.
"Spam is with us for good," says Mike Saguri, cofounder of Grand Towers Online Casino. "Just like the junk mail at home I sort through each day to get to the real mail. The real reason spam will never go away is because it makes money."
Saguri sends out e-mail touting his virtual casino, but insists that it's not spam. "We at Grand Towers Casino discourage our Webmasters from sending spam due to obvious reasons," he says, alluding to the fact that spam is considered unethical and unpopular. So he calls his missives "marketing e-mail," even though recipients - like the entire staff of The Industry Standard - do not ask to receive the messages.
"We would like to see some sort of mandatory law that if you send unsolicited e-mail, you should include a code at the top of your e-mail stating so. This way anyone could reject the e-mail if they wish," says Saguri.
"But so many Webmasters realize that if they send out 100,000 e-mails per day, they will probably get 400 to 1,000 cash responses per day. It's hard to understand why more business are not spamming the Net. Some of these advertisers are building small fortunes."
Saguri agreed by e-mail to share some of the responses he gets to his spam. He sent two examples, one positive and one negative.
The Good Type
I don't normally reply to unsolicited e-mail. But damn it, I have to admit I'm interested in your casino banner program. Tell me more. A few $'s extra never hurt.
The Bad Type
Dear Chrystine,
Thank you so much for writing me. This is so exciting! I am new to the Internet and when someone decides to write me from a casino it is very exciting! At first, I was concerned because I usually get unsolicited e-mail from sleazy pornography sites ... but not you Chrystine! I was happy to get an e-mail about how to make money! I like to make money through hits! Please tell me more!
No, actually I would like to know why you spell your name with a "Y." Are you a slave in the Casino? If so, I would like to liberate you from your Internet captors.
I was so excited about receiving your e-mail; I sent a copy to your ISP! I hope THEY want to earn money, too. Please send me more e-mail, Chrystine with a Y. Yours, Tim
If anything, this response is mild compared to what some spammers get. Ultimately, people can complain about it, antispam vendors can concoct better ways to block it, and legislators can write new laws outlawing it - but the sad fact is that spam is here to stay.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR COMPUTER ETHICS
From the Computer Ethics Institute
1. Thou shalt not use a computer to harm other people.
2. Thou shalt not interfere with other people's computer work.
3. Thou shalt not snoop around in other people's files.
4. Thou shalt not use a computer to steal.
5. Thou shalt not use a computer to bear false witness.
6. Thou shalt not use or copy software for which you have not paid.
7. Thou shalt not use other people's computer resources without authorization.
8. Thou shalt not appropriate other people's intellectual output.
9. Thou shalt think about the social consequences of the program you write.
10. Thou shalt use a computer in ways that show consideration and respect.
Source: -
Turbam.E.,McLEAN.E and Wetherbe.J.(1999)
Turbam.E.,McLEAN.E and Wetherbe.J.(1999)
Turbam.E, McLEAN.E and Wetherbe.J. (1999)
http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/ten.html
