FTC says federal Can-Spam law has worked

[mandy]

About 70 percent of the world's e-mail messages continue to be spam. But the number is leveling off, which federal officials on Tuesday cited as evidence that a law enacted two years ago is working.

At a press conference here, the Federal Trade Commission released a report delivered last week to Congress, that said the so-called Can-Spam Act is "effective in providing protection for consumers."

Can-Spam has permitted the agency to pursue lawsuits against spammers and has spurred adoption of commercial e-mail "best practices," such as including an "opt out" link and the sender's postal address in any unsolicited message, said Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Some critics of Can-Spam, which requires an opt-out approach rather than a stricter "opt in" standard, have even suggested that the law may have increased the amount of junk e-mail...

full article: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-60030...d.newsfeed
full FTC report on Can-Spam (.pdf format): http://www.ftc.gov/reports/canspam05/051...pamrpt.pdf

[bargainbloodhound]

FTC says federal Can-Spam law has worked

About 70 percent of the world's e-mail messages continue to be spam.

I really don't consider 70% spam as evidence that the law is working.  If the dipwombat poo poos at the FTC hadn't buckled in to pressure from the direct marketing industry's lobbyists and weakened the law by only requiring OPT-OUT but  not making OPT-IN a requirement the percentage would be way below 70% spam.  Opt-in should be a legal requirement.

Congress intentionally killed tougher state laws, such as one in California that had required recipients to opt into commercial mailing lists.

Maybe they'd like to pay for the extra bandwidth that spammers eat up as a result of that move by Congress.

[mandy]

Not everyone agrees with the FTC's report on Can-Spam.  Many see the report as 

Some antispam vendors and computer users don't see the same picture the U.S. Federal Trade Commission saw when it reported yesterday that many people are receiving less unsolicited commercial e-mail in their in-boxes now than they were two years ago.

The spam problem isn't shrinking, said Ray Everett-Church, counsel for the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email and author of the new book Fighting Spam for Dummies.

"Technology has improved incrementally in the last year, but spam volumes remain at all-time highs by most measures,"...

full article: http://www.computerworld.com/securitytop...64,00.html

[bargainbloodhound]

The FTC report focused largely on spam-filtering technology as a major reason computer users may be seeing less spam

The FTC report fails to mention that as a result of spam filtering technology email has become a less reliable form of communications and users are also seeing less legitimate email.  Once upon a time when I emailed someone (or they emailed me) there was a 100% chance they would receive it.  Now there is a 50% chance their spam filter will eat the email before it ever gets to their in box.  Spam filtering has forced me to use the telephone more than I used to.

only 4% of unsolicited commercial e-mail complied with CAN-SPAM in 2005, up from 3% in 2004,

I'd call 4% compliance an indication of the failure of Can-Spam, but maybe I'm just a pessimist and I'm looking at the glass as being 96% empty rather than 4% full