Spam legislation has proliferated as much as spam itself. Are any of the three leading bills — CAN-Spam (S.877), Rid Spam (H.R. 2214) or the Anti-Spam Act of 2003 (H.R. 2515) — best? Are the differences among them significant enough for us to even worry about? And most important, will any of them stop spam?
According to the FTC, two-thirds of spam “contained obvious indicia of falsity,” which leads us to one simple truth: Spammers lie. Spammers lie about who they are, where they are and what their messages are about. Spammers also lie about whether or not recipients requested e-mail, and they lie about the recipient’s ability to opt out of an e-mail list.
That said, the major federal spam bills, despite objections from consumer protection groups, adequately address the spam issue. The simple reality of spam is that deception is the grease that keeps the spam machine working. Once the lies spammers use result in fines, we will see the beginning of the end of the spam epidemic.
The good news is that all three bills are so similar that whichever one passes, recipients and e-mail marketers alike will benefit.
All three require things that spammers don’t include: valid header information revealing the origin of the e-mails, a truthful subject line and a working opt-out link. If spammers were to fully comply with these requirements (once a federal law is passed) the Internet service providers could filter and block spammers’ messages. Recipients could opt out of the spam that still got through. When the spammer, in an effort to get mail into inboxes, forges header information, lies in the subject line or fails to include a working opt-out link, they would be violating the law and could be prosecuted.
ISPs are integral to the war on spam, for under the law they would be empowered by the federal bills to sue spammers. ISPs have the technical means to locate and sue senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail, and they alone can identify and represent their customers who received the spam. In Utah, which allows consumers to sue, more than 2,000 suits have been filed by a single law firm.
In general, class-action suits and private rights of action are fraught with abuse. But as we saw in Earth-Link’s recent $16.4 million court victory over spammer Howard Carmack, legal actions tempered by good business sense protect recipients and address the heart of the spam issue.
In the end, the war on spam is about lies. The proposed federal laws properly address this reality and put the weapons in the right combatants’ hands. Will the bills stop spam? Of course not. But legislation will silence the biggest liars and the ISPs can decide on a case-by-case basis what standard they want to apply to their recipients’ e-mail.
Quinn Jalli, strategic relations manager for e-mail marketing technology company Mindshare Design in San Francisco, is an attorney who has lobbied on behalf of his company’s view for anti-spam bills in California and on Capitol Hill.
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