To the surprise of probably no one, a new report is due out this coming Monday that says the federal Can-Spam law has done little to curb spam. MX Logic, an antispam company, said its surveys for the year showed widespread and flagrant disregard for the U.S. law that went into effect January 1, 2004.
The Can-Spam law regulated how people and organizations could send unsolicited commercial e-mail, but MX Logic says that 97 percent of such e-mail sent this year violated the law. Spam made up 77 percent of e-mail traffic as a whole over the course of the year. Another antispam company, Postini, says they estimate that legitimate e-mail plummeted to 12 percent from 22 percent of e-mail traffic in 2004.
About the only benefit of Can-Spam is for service providers as the law gave them the ability to go after those who send spam. Large Internet service providers have indeed used the law to file suits against spammers. Microsoft this month filed seven suits alleging Can-Spam violations.
As a recipient of about 600 pieces of spam e-mail per day, I can tell you that spam is still coming in droves. But, I will say that I receive about the amount of spam that I did a year ago, if that means anything.
Two big reasons that spam continues to flood our inboxes is that it is cheap to produce and it is possibly seen by millions. But the biggest reason of all is: IT WORKS. People are answering these junk mails to buy the products being offered, whether it be software-on-the-cheap, porn, mortgages, prescription drugs, or dating services. FYI: the biggest sales lately are being run up by unscrupulous companies selling pirated software at bargain prices.
Tomorrow I will tell you about a free anti-spam software program that will get rid of that junk mail for you automatically.
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