New U.S. spam law has little initial impact - 'net providers

Forbes ^ | 01.07.04 | Andy Sullivan

[Land of the Free 04]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Offers for herbal Viagra and unbelievably low mortgage rates continue to clog Americans' e-mail inboxes, despite a new U.S. law that outlaws many "spam" messages, industry officials said Wednesday.

Online marketers continue to bombard users with millions of spam items that differ little in style and volume from those sent before the law took effect on Jan. 1, Internet providers said.

One prominent online marketer said he was sending out more bulk e-mail than ever.

"There's been no big shift, no big change in content or legitimacy," said Mary Youngblood, an abuse manager at EarthLink Inc.

Widespread outrage over unwanted bulk e-mail prompted Congress to pass the first nationwide anti-spam measure last year. But even the law's most avid supporters have said it will be widely ignored if it is not aggressively enforced.

So far, the law has failed to slow the torrent, Internet providers reported.

Overall e-mail volume dipped over the holidays as people spent less time in front of their computers but the proportion of spam remained constant, they said.

Officials at Verizon Communications and EarthLink said spam continued to account for roughly 55 percent of all the traffic coming into their networks.

The spam situation has likewise changed little at Yahoo Inc., a spokeswoman said.

Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, the nation's No. 1 Internet provider, said the law had inspired many spammers to route their traffic through computers in Asia so they would be harder to track down.

"There was a noticeable and distinct shift in spam traffic patterns that took place almost overnight," said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham.

Online marketer Scott Richter said he had altered the text of the hundreds of millions of messages he sends out daily to include his street address and a clear notice that the message is an advertisement, as required by the new law.

Richter said his company, Westminster, Colorado-based Optinrealbig.com, was doing more business than ever.

"We're doing fine," said Richter, who faces fraud charges in the states of New York and Washington.

Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service

[BigSkyFreeper]

New U.S. spam law has little initial impact - 'net providers

Of course it has little initial impact. My in box within the last half hour had 115 new messages dumped into it, all of it spam.

[misterrob]

Richter is scum....

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[clamper1797]

They need to go after the companies that the spam advertises. A couple of multimillion dollar fines on these companies and the spam will stop ... at least for domestic companies

[Wheee The People]

I now forward my spam to my congress critter and senator with a note asking why they aren't doing anything about it....

[Blue Screen of Death]

They need to go after the companies that the spam advertises.

Yup.

[Revolting cat!]

"Little initial impact"? How about no impact?! As predicted here and elsewhere. Weak law to protect the currupt ruling classes in DC and their bribe givers (Direct Marketing Association in this case.)

[rit]

They need to go after the companies that the spam advertises.

It is unlikely that the sponsor has broke any law. Third party marketing firms also provide shield.

[Land of the Free 04]

They need to go after the companies that the spam advertises.

They still haven't gone after the spammers.

[skyman]

The only people that will get nailed on this are the small legit entrepreneurs who have a website and ezine list that people asked to be on. One person will complain that it is spam and the feds will make an example of them..

I know people who have had their websites shut down (not by the feds but by web hosts) because of one untrue spam complaint

..while the big time spammers send out their crap emails by the millions and nothing happens to them.

Sky

[citizen]

Classify them as domestic terrorists and hunt them down

[skyman]

The only people that will get nailed on this are the small legit entrepreneurs who have a website and ezine list that people asked to be on. One person will complain that it is spam and the feds will make an example of them..

I know people who have had their websites shut down (not by the feds but by web hosts) because of one untrue spam complaint

..while the big time spammers send out their crap emails by the millions and nothing happens to them.

Sky

[Investment Biker]

115 messages in 1/2 hour is a lot. Do you use filtering software? I have been using simplecheck version (From Simplecheck.net) it is free and has simple filtering rules. It checks my mail every 5 minutes, time is settable. All messages In two days I have written several rules that eliminate about 95% of the spam sent to me. Spammers have multiple means of sending to you. Some times they use addresses that are close to yours with your Internet service provider. I check for these names and delete those that have these addresses. I also delete certain (by extension) countries with which I have no reason to receive mail. I am also going to set up a rule that requires my email name to be present so spammers can not use Bcc (blank carbon copy) field. This will also drop certain newsletters that use this field so I will set a rule that permits them. I have also banned blank subject fields and certain words. All messages that get through filtering are displayed with subject/from to in the little program for manual deleting if necessary. You can even download a text version of the email before opening up you email software and it will tell you if there are attachments. It works well. Try it.

[Investment Biker]

I forgot to mention to use the beta version it has a better rule set.