Relief may be in sight for unwanted e-mail 'spam'
May 27, 2001
By JIM BROOKS
I've had the same e-mail address for more than six years, and over
time, my address must have landed on the list of every hopeful direct
marketer across the country -- each hoping to entice me to buy a
product I never knew I wanted.
You've probably received them yourself. Unsolicited e-mails -- known
as ``spam'' -- are both a tremendous annoyance and a fact of life for
users of today's Internet.
My first experience with e-mail spam came while I was an America
Online user about 1994. It seemed for a time I spent more of my time
deleted unwanted solicitations than I did composing useful messages.
These days, about of third of my incoming e-mails are solicitations
-- and they cover quite a variety of offers, too.
About every 10 days to two weeks, I get a couple of offers for a free
pager. Other e-mails are offers of easy credit cards or offers to
help me set up a merchant's account so I can accept credit cards via
e-commerce (unfortunately, I'm not selling anything online).
I frequently get messages for get-rich schemes that proclaim "you
have absolutely nothing to lose!" and promise incomes ``of at
least $10,000 per month working from home!''
Other messages offer university diplomas (``bachelors, masters, MBA,
and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your
choice''), inkjet cartridges, online gambling, personal loan info,
weight loss products, home financing and more.
There's no national law or regulation that cover unwanted e-mail
spam, and only a few states have laws that address the problem.
Both houses of Congress are considering legislation that could
regulate unsolicited e-mail offers, and require companies that send
them to label them as such.
The companies would also have to provide a valid e-mail address so
consumers could request to receive no further solicitations.
The Federal Trade Commission could levy fines against companies who
violated the law, and state attorneys general could also take action
against spammers on behalf of state residents.
A House committee recently cut out provisions in the legislation that
would've allowed consumers to sue companies that ignored requests to
be taken off mailing lists.
The committee's legislation would:
-- require spammers to use legitimate return e-mail addresses;
-- require labeling of pornographic e-mails so they could be deleted
before being opened; and
-- boost Internet access providers' ability to block spam, and allow
them to sue spammers for up to $1 million plus attorneys' fees.
The legislation is modeled loosely on federal law covering junk faxes.
When fax machines were growing in popularity a number of years ago,
junk faxes were becoming nearly the problem that junk e-mail is today.
Junk faxes were worse because they consumed valuable resources at the
recipient's expense.
A federal law was approved that established hefty penalties for
companies sending unwanted solicitations by fax. The federal junk-fax
law effectively put an end to most fax "spammers,"
The spam bill now moves on to the House Rules Committee, which will
determine which version of existing spam bills go forward to the full
House. The Rules Committee is likely to take up the bill in early to mid-June.
SPAM QUESTION. A reader of this column recently asked if the
phrase "If you want to be removed from this list, click on the
reply button" would stop further unsolicited messages or simply
serve to confirm an address for a spammer.
Without definite legislation covering spam and the activities of
those who send these junk e-mails, clicking on such a link may do one
other the other -- or both.
In my experience, I frequently find that these return addresses are
bogus. In other words, there's no way to stop future junk e-mails.
If they are legitimate, there's nothing stopping the spammer from
sending you more unwanted e-mail anyway.
EBAY, HALF.COM MERGER. Online auction giant eBay and the
eBay-owned Half.com site will be combined during the next year, the
company announced recently.
Half.com was created by eBay to allow the sale of products at set
prices, rather than the auction-style method of selling found on eBay.
The move will streamline eBay's operation, and give both sites a
chance to swap technology.
One result of the merger will be the development of online
storefronts on eBay. The storefronts will be online pages where
buyers can find goods at fixed prices without going through the
bidding process.
EBay sellers who also were users of Half.com have been able to sell
at a set price from within their eBay listing for months now.
EBay claims to have 29 million users worldwide. |
