FTC Recommends Bounty on Spammers

joke-boy writes "AP reports that as part of the CANSPAM legislation, the FTC has issued a report recommending placing taxpayer-funded 6-figure bounties on spammers, much like the bounties placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted."

Comments

Six Figures?

[josh3736]

I can understand six figure rewards for those on the ten most wanted list, but for spammers?

Surely there are things that money could be better spent on. Like say, the implementation of a new email protocol. Or (gasp!) things like Social Security or education.

Re:Six Figures?

[savagedome]

Top ten most wanted deserve 7 and 8 figures.

But seriously, screw these scum of the earth bastards. Remember those days when web was a nice place and everybody you knew had a cutesy little homepage and you would leave cute little message in their guest books and such with your name and email and such. DAMN I WANT THAT BACK. That was a nicer web instead of trying to take every bit of care not to leak your email EVEN ONCE. Coming up with NOSPAM crap in your email addresses while posting them somewhere in the hope that some bastard spammer's spider won't catch that. Putting all those funky signs and punctuation and ascii characters to fool those spiders. Using spam filters, white lists, black lists, bayseian etc. etc. Telling everybody not to send, forward anything and never to use your email except for personal reasons.

And then your girlfriend sends you that cute little card to your email account from that cutesy flowery website that is an email harvester.

DAMN I WANT THE OLD WEB BACK BEFORE THESE SPAMMERS CAME AND TOOK IT OVER.

Re:Their Figures are a Little Off

[bizpile]

Really? If I knew someone who was spamming, I'd turn them in for free. Any cash would just be a bonus.

You make a good point. It's like when they double the bounty on Osama. Like people in Pakistan/Afganistan are sitting around saying, "You know, I'd turn him in for $50 million, but $25 million just doen't speak to me."

Actually, I'd turn in a spammer just to get a couple of free punches ;).

Won't do much

[Dorsai42]

When there's a bounty on the advertisers who use the spammers, then we'll see a reduction in spam

What a waste. Next, Please.

[KarmaOverDogma]

I agree.

Further, I am very curious as to how many bounty hunters will have will and/or the ability to get foriegn spammers to US Courts.

This, of course, speaks nothing of the spammers who are already here.

Spammers being actively hunted in the post Soviet Bloc countries, China, Nigeria, etc would be a very interesting thing to see if it *ever* happened, which I sincerely doubt.

The war on spam reminds me of the war on drugs.

And, IIRC, the war on drugs has yet to be won.

Donald Rumsfeld, a man I am not very fond of, did correctly point out in my opinion that the war on drugs is a demand problem.

So is Spam.

As long as spam is profitable, it *will* continue.

This will mainly serve to make the FTC look good while doing little (VERY little) to solve the problem.

Our tax dollars at waste - again.

.

Re:Their Figures are a Little Off

[Antique Geekmeister]

I turn in a dozen clearly fraudulent spams a month, which are blithely ignored by law enforcement. The problem is not "catching". The law enforcement agencies can easily, if they wish, get subpoenas to track the records or follow a canceled check or credit card to get the worst of the spammers.

The problem is that they can't be bothered unless it involves hundreds of thousands of dollars of blatant wire fraud, and even then they're quite incompetent at following the evidence or even prosecuting for the right crime.