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Can-Spam Increased Spam
andy1307 writes "According to New York Times, spam has actually gone up [Free registration required. You gave real info, right?] since the CAN-SPAM act went into effect. There is a graphic in the article that illustrates this increase. Before the CAN-SPAM act was passed, spam was about 60% of all e-mail traffic. Now it's 80%. In a we-told-you-so quote, Steve Linford, the founder of the Spamhaus Project, says CAN-SPAM legalized spam by giving bulk advertisers permission to send junk e-mail as long as they followed certain rules. Slashdot covered this story last year. For companies that offer offshore "bulk advertising" servers, business is booming. A survey from Stanford University estimates the global cost of spam in terms of lost productivity to be at 50 billion $ and 17 billion $ in the US alone. CAN-SPAM does give prosecutors some leverage to go after the merchants - but it must be proved that they knew, or should have known, that their wares were being fed into the illegal spam chain. " The BBC has a related story talking about rates of spam, viruses, and scam mail.
Welcome to Slashdot. Where correlation does not mean causality for things like piracy, but does for things like legislation inducing spam. The trick is to remember that the evidence supports your position, and then figure out why.
--LordPixie
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Definition:
The name in Latin means "after this therefore because of this".
This describes the fallacy. An author commits the fallacy when
it is assumed that because one thing follows another that the
one thing was caused by the other.
Examples:
(i) Immigration to Alberta from Ontario increased. Soon
after, the welfare rolls increased. Therefore, the increased
immigration caused the increased welfare rolls.
(ii) I took EZ-No-Cold, and two days later, my cold
disappeared.
Proof:
Show that the correlation is coincidental by showing that: (i)
the effect would have occurred even if the cause did not
occur, or (ii) that the effect was caused by something other
than the suggested cause.
References
(Cedarblom and Paulsen: 237, Copi and Cohen: 101)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Not just journalists, either. Anyone with an agenda loves to forget these things, too. If you look at their handy graph, it looks like fairly linear growth both before and after CAN-SPAM, so blaming the law may be a little out of order.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
A fact that seems lost on most journalists these days.
And I see that R'ing TFA is still lost on most Slashdotters these days...
This is not an article about how CAN-SPAM has increased spam. It is an article about how spam has increased despite CAN-SPAM. That is a very different thing. Several viewpoints are given from all sides involved on why it's happening, but at no time does the article itself suggest CAN-SPAM is the cause - only that it has not been an effective deterrent.
I think that's something we can all agree on.
There is something deeply ironic about a post stating incredulity that people would buy anything from spam... ... in a post with a sig to a "offerprizes.com" -- "free" iPod stuff.
Life is short: void the warranty.
If you believe that, then I have a scary statistic for you. Since that legislation passed more people have died of gunshots in the US! And my lucky red shirt prevents bear attacks with a 100% success rate!
Corrolation != Cause & effect
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin