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By Monte Enbysk
Here's to the Michigan business owner who says "spam" wastes about 10 man-hours a week of his company's time.
And to the woman who has more than 800 e-mail addresses on her "blocked sender's list." And to the senior citizen who gets on average 24 spam messages a day, 25% of which are pornography. And to the woman who "unsubscribes" at every opportunity and still can't get off any spam mailing lists. And to all of you who feel you've been hoodwinked into "opting-in" when you don't want to.
I can feel your pain!
Spam, also known as "unsolicited commercial e-mail," is certainly today's scourge of the Internet. It now represents 20% of all e-mail on the Web, according to spam filtering company Brightmail. More than 100 of you responded to a recent column by my colleague Philipp Harper and merely reinforced my attitude about it. I average about 40 junk mails a day myself. And much of that is coming straight in to my business account.
So, we're all mad — and we won't take it anymore! Uh, well . . .
Truthful answer: We can take steps to cut back on the porn and other junk e-mail we get, but we can't get rid of it entirely. "There is no good mechanical solution to eliminate spam. If there was, we'd all be using it," says John R. Levine, author of "The Internet for Dummies" and a board member of the anti-spam group CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail). In addition, there is currently no federal law against spam, although an anti-spam bill is under consideration (see more below). So spamming is not illegal, but it would exist even if it was.
Here's my best effort at helping you — and me — reduce the amount of spam we get.
Check out the e-mail filtering and management services available on the Internet. They can't guarantee 100% success, but they can help you fight spammers. Here is a sampling:
Spam Buster, from Contact Plus. A filtering service that gets high marks from ZDNet.
MailWasher. A free e-mail checker that can eliminate spam and viruses (this company gladly accepts donations).
ePrompter. Another free service that enables you to see e-mail headers from multiple accounts before the messages hit your inboxes, so you can kill it for good in advance.
Spamex. For a small fee, you use disposable e-mail addresses that forward messages to your real e-mail address, which you keep hidden.
SpamCop. A spam reporting and filtering service, for a nominal price.
Brightmail. This spam-detection and filtering service for ISPs is now offered free to customers of Verizon's dial-up and DSL service.
In addition, free e-mail providers such as Hotmail allow you to block some spam messages and/or divert them into "junk mail" folders — although this may seem like putting a bottle cap on a fire hydrant. (Every reduction helps.)
And standard e-mail providers such as Microsoft Outlook and Eudora enable you to filter out recurring messages by setting up rules. The problem here is spammers rarely use the same return e-mail address more than once. Still, there are rules that can help you put a dent in it.
Ask questions about an Internet service provider's own spam filtration system before you sign up. Does it automatically block certain messages to its servers? Does it add certain words, symbols or letters to the header to identify potential spam (such as "ADV:" or "<POTENTIAL SPAM>")? Does it make any attempt to fight the spammers?
These are questions suggested by Don Blumenthal, Internet Lab coordinator for the Federal Trade Commission, who advises you to try a different ISP if you don't like the answers.
The free account (or America Online) trade-off: Expect more spam as the cost. Know upfront that signing up with a free e-mail account service such as Hotmail or Yahoo! — or a ubiquitous one such as AOL — will increase your chances of getting spammed.
Why? Because spammers mercilessly try random combinations of names and letters at Hotmail, Yahoo! and AOL. With so many millions of users, the spammers are bound to make a good number of connections under this draconian method. These providers continually work to fight spammers — and lose. As they get better at blocking spam, the spammers get better at getting around the blocks.
One possibility: Try a highly unusual combination of letters and numbers as an e-mail address. The drawback: If it is too unusual, you won't remember it, and neither will anyone else. (Note: Levine once talked an ISP into giving him an e-mail name of "no.spam." "You wouldn't believe all the spam I got," he says with a laugh.)
Avoid publicizing your e-mail address. The more your e-mail address is seen on Internet bulletin boards and in newsgroups, chat rooms and the like, the more you will be spammed.
Some advice from the FTC's Blumenthal: Have one e-mail address that you keep tightly controlled; give it only to close friends and business associates. Have another that you use more publicly, and for bulletin boards and newsgroups. You will get spammed there more, but you can check this inbox less frequently and at least feel like you are keeping spammers at arm's length.
Report spammers to your ISP, account provider and/or to the FTC. The most reputable ISPs or account providers have a complaint address such as Hotmail's abuse@hotmail.com. If your provider gets enough complaints against a particular spammer, it is likely to "blacklist" the mailer permanently.
Another option is the FTC, at uce@ftc.gov. Complaints to the FTC help the agency fight spammers who are scam artists, Blumenthal says. The complaints go straight to a database that currently has more than 8 million messages. "We look for scams only — right now that is all we can regulate," he says. "Spam is not illegal. But to whatever extent we can stop scammers, we can stop a lot of spammers too."
Read up on the proposed Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001. U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., introduced the bill, HR 718, in February 2001. It seeks to "protect individuals, families, and Internet service providers from unsolicited and unwanted electronic mail," and has some support, but has yet to get very far. For more information, search HR 718 at the Library of Congress Web site.
Outlawing spam is not as easy as it may sound. There are First Amendment and other conflicting issues, Blumenthal says. "Do you have a flat ban, or a ban with exceptions? There are a number of legal issues." Levine supports the bill, and notes that a federal law prohibiting junk faxes has been on the books since 1991. "I would point out that the Junk Fax Bill had similar issues."
Get further tips and advice from anti-spam activist groups. Fighting spam has become a cause for many. "Spam is not a technical problem; it is a political and social problem," says Levine, who operates the Abuse.net site. Similar activist sites include spam.abuse.net and the CAUCE site.
Last but not least, "unsubscribe" at your own risk. Should you click on the "unsubscribe" or "remove" links to get off mailing lists? Both Blumenthal and Levine agree: Do so only for messages from companies or organizations that you recognize and trust.
One of the spammers' nasty tricks is to get you to "unsubscribe" so they can validate your e-mail address. If you respond, they've connected; you are a real person. They can add your e-mail address to a list that they will use or sell. On the other hand, a company you know and trust may inadvertently spam you due to inept e-mail management. By responding, you've done them a service. So, to reiterate, if you don't recognize the mailer, you probably shouldn't "unsubscribe."
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