Will Spam Choke the Internet?

Analysis: Pondering how to end the epidemic.

Daniel Tynan, special to PCWorld.com

WASHINGTON-- If last week's FTC Spam Forum here could be reduced to a single sound byte, it is Commissioner Orson Swindle's declaration that "e-mail is the killer app of the Internet, and spam is killing the killer app."

It was a sentiment that everyone who attended the three-day event could endorse. But agreeing how to find the killers and bring them to justice is proving much more elusive.

Interested Parties

This remarkable gathering featured more than 400 attendees from nearly every side of the spam divide. It drew angry users whose in-boxes groan under the load of unwanted mail; representatives of huge ISPs that spend millions each year on blocking spam and suing spammers; legitimate e-marketers whose messages get blocked despite following all the rules; and bulk mailers tired of being blacklisted by ISPs and navigating 29 different state antispam laws.

The conference illustrates both how complex the issue of spam is and how hot a topic it has become. It drew media coverage from around the globe and politicians from across the Beltway, who flocked to the TV cameras like flies to honey.

In the forum's first hour, Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D- Oregon) made unscheduled appearances at the dais, vowing to pass their CAN-SPAM Act in the current legislative session. The act provides penalties of up to $500,000 for individuals who knowingly send commercial e-mail containing false information or invalid opt-out mechanisms.

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California) proposed a bounty to be paid to anyone who turned in spammers that broke the law. The next day, Senator Charles Schumer (D- New York) discussed his plan to create a Do Not Spam registry containing the e-mail addresses of everyone who wished to opt out of unwanted solicitations.

Outside the Law

But the forum's attendees seemed far less confident than the politicians that such laws would do any good. While nearly everyone agrees that some form of federal legislation is necessary, most reacted to these proposals with undisguised disgust.

For one thing, such laws may preempt stronger state statutes and make it tougher to prosecute spammers. And by defining spam narrowly in terms of fraud, they could legitimize all other forms of unsolicited bulk mail--essentially making your in-box fair game to anyone who labels their mail properly, doesn't falsify information, and provides an opt-out mechanism.

The only group on any panel that favored the CAN-SPAM Act was the Direct Marketing Association, whose members have a significant interest in preserving the right to send unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Lofgren's proposal received tepid support--antispam activists, who do this kind of bounty hunting as a hobby, licked their chops at the prospect. But many other attendees feel any laws would be ignored by spammers, who could continue to operate with impunity offshore.

Battle in Courts

Instead, most spam opponents favor laws that provide a private right of action, enabling them to sue a spammer and collect damages, as AOL and Earthlink have done.

"Even without a spam law, we've got our guns loaded with a dozen bullets, any one of which would get the spammer," says attorney Pete Wellborn. He won a $25 million judgment on behalf of Earthlink in a spam suit last July. Yet such suits are costly to pursue and relatively rare.

Technologists pointed to improvements in spam filtering and ambitious plans to separate 'trusted senders' from junk purveyors. These schemes face a long uphill road to broad deployment, if they're used at all.

Short of legislation requiring all commercial e-mailers to obtain the permission of the recipient before sending mail--unlikely, given the powerful DMA's long-standing opposition to such schemes--a quick fix is not likely. Yet spam and the frustration it causes grow exponentially worse each day.

"Will somebody please come up with a way to give consumers the power to say 'no'?' pleaded Swindle. Camera shutters clicked. The audience cheered. And, somewhere, a spammer just smiled.