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Canadian Spam Levels - Up? Down? You Be the Judge

Posted by timothy on from the if-convicted-you-must-wear-this-moose-attractant dept.

spamfighter writes "Survey firm Ipsos-Reid has taken the interesting stance that spam to Canadians has been attenuated by 20% because of the federal privacy law PIPEDA which is so fearsome in nature that is scares off even the biggest- baddest spammers in other countries. CAUCE Canada has their doubts."

4 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Story of Deep Well by mattkime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While numbers can be deceiving, I do believe tougher law will prevent crimes.

    Case in point: The War on Drugs

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    Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  2. Not a chance. by DaCool42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I work in the IT field for a large Canadian company. The amount of spam we get is slowly but steady increasing. Currently somewhere around 98% of all the mail we get is "Junk" (spam, invalid recipients, improper smtp protocol, etc). Looking at our mail server graphs shows a definite upward trend in both overall "Junk" and confirmed spam.

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    All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
  3. Re:Story of Deep Well by Drishmung · · Score: 4, Insightful
    sometimes I think the law is not tough enough because we do not yet know how to effectively identify and prosecute the offenders

    The law is tough, and becoming tougher, because we do not yet know how to effectively identify and prosecute the offenders.

    Spammers (as a generalisation), do it for financial reward. Negative reward is applied in the form of laws against spam. However, the chance of being caught is so low, that this is no real disincentive. Thus, in order to make it not worthwhile to spam, we have to either

    1. Raise the probability of being caught and punished
    2. Apply higher penalties

    Eventually, a rational spammer will decide that penalty×prob_penalty_being_applied > profit, and will give up.

    Since prob_penalty_being_applied is currently so low, the tempation is to make penalty very high.

    But that has its own risks. Remember, you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. Draconian penalties usually result in offenders who 'shoot back'. A spammer facing 25 years as a guest of the authorities, might just be willing to take fairly extreme methods to avoid prosecution.

    --
    Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
  4. Like spammers know who they're targetting by Xugumad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have an e-mail address that ends in .ac.uk (UK academic), and still most of my spam is for offers that only apply to the US (pills from Canadian pharmacies being the most popular at the moment, it seems). That, and a lot of offers of a degree, which I really wouldn't expect if these were targetted (nearly everyone with a .ac.uk address either has a degree, or is working on getting a real degree).

    As such, I find it very hard to believe they're avoiding spamming Canadians.