Slashdot Mirror
FTC Declares Can-Spam a Success
TheSixth1 writes "ZDNet is reporting that the FTC announced in a recent report to Congress [PDF Warning] that the Can-Spam act is 'effective in providing protection for consumers.' The report boasts that the substantive provisions of the Act have mandated adoption of a number of commercial email "best practices" that many legitimate online marketers are now following. Second, the Act has provided law enforcement agencies and ISPs with an additional tool to use when bringing suit against spammers. The more than 50 cases brought to date by the FTC, the Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and ISPs demonstrate CAN-SPAM's enforcement efficacy."
Errr... Last time I checked I was still getting about 50 spam messages a day.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
I was wondering why we all stopped getting spam.
... we'd still be relying on SPEWS to bully innocent bystanders into bullying ISPs into shutting down spammers after the event.
Virtually serving coffee
"Mission Accomplished!"
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...but the county producing the most SPAM is still the US.
__
Adult Funny Videos
... the Nigerian who sees it necessary to email me once or twice a day.
That's right my favourite type of Spam comes in a can.
The report boasts that the substantive provisions of the Act have mandated adoption of a number of commercial email "best practices" that many legitimate online marketers are now following. Second, the Act has provided law enforcement agencies and ISPs with an additional tool to use when bringing suit against spammers.
It then went on to offer Congressmen a pre-approved war loan, before asking for its help in liberating $25,000,000 (TWENTY-FIVE MILLION) from terrorism.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
According to my inbox, I could have a penis 4 miles long that can be as thick as a tree. i also have tons of hot 18yo babes just wanting to be with me :) I guess its not spam anymore and its real, the success of this act says so!!
I still get 50 spams or so a day and only 25% or so are even in english.
Members of Congress:
I am Mrs. Branson, a wife of embattled President of war torn
Liberia, Mr. Branson. My husband just stepped down as President
of Liberia some months ago, but matters were not helped when UN
Special War Crimes Court for Sierra Leone indicted my husband
for war crimes in June last year, demanding his prosecution.
Currently I and my husband have been granted asylum in Nigeria,
but I relocated my two sons immediately in July 2003 to Sao Tome
(a small oil rich island off the coast of West Africa).
Early last year, he entrusted some large quantities of diamonds
to me. He told me if anything happened to him, I should use it
to take care of myself. Fearing its detection due to the volume,
my son (Williams) traveled to South-Africa with the diamonds...
I work for one of the major email security companies. I can't say that CAN-SPAM has had much effect at all on spam and the spamming spammers who send it - we see just as much spam as ever, and it's just as obfuscated as ever. If anything, the spammers have evolved to be better at hiding their identities than ever before, to avoid CAN-SPAM prosecution. When the law took effect, zombies were out there, but there were also still a lot of netblocks handed to spammers by providers; now, zombies rule the day and static netblocks used by spammers are becoming rarer all the time. Defined in those terms, CAN-SPAM is a bust.
:-)
However, if you want to define "success" as "Good for us and our competitors, who are all signing up lots of new customers every month and seeing better revenue streams all the time" then yes, CAN-SPAM is a resounding success
"Our new blindfold program has proven effective in preventing the rising and setting of the sun each day. We celebrate the tremendous achievement this program has completed."
:)
Wow... talk about delusional.
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
My e-mail address has a spam filter on the server, which detects pretty much 98% of all garbage that comes in and labels it [SPAM], which is then sent to my junk mail folder upon download. You can pass a million acts and laws, but it's really things like this that are actually effective.
How come it is when I hear the words inept and idiot I immeadiatly think FTC!
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
The title of the paper is misleading, it stated that the "FTC staff conducted interviews with 98 individuals," which suggests that with the "enactment of CAN-SPAM, spam volume has begun to decline as has consumer frustration". Of course, the paper is written in such a way that CAN-SPAM was responsible for the "technological and marketplace developments in email since the enactment of CAN-SPAM." In other words, this is nothing but a government agency trying to hide the uselessness of a law they passed by taking credit for the technological advancements that combat spam.
How could you doubt the government who brought you the DMCA (which has virtually eliminated software and music piracy), capital punishment and gun control (which together have virtually eliminated murder and other violent crime), and mandatory car insurance (which has virtually eliminated insurance industry bankruptcy)?
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
At our site we have about 100 users. We get around 65000 messages a day with about 0.5% being real emails. Each day we get email sent to about 4000 different user names. So I guess the can spam act does work after all.
It was never the legitimate online businesses you had to worry about, anyway. The impetus to comply with the law only means increased operating expenses for legitimate businesses, and working overseas for the rest.
The whole world hates spam, UN anti spam efforts
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Man, talk about your misnomers...
I get just as much spam in my inbox as I did before this useless law. It does absolutely nothing to punish or restrict anyone outside of the United States (or who uses botnets and the like). That coupled with the fact that many commercial retailers bury their stupid opt-out in the bottom of several pages of spamvertisements in their emails (hey, they are technically complying after all) pretty much make this a useless law. Google's filters don't work for shite in this matter either, and they don't seem to care when you complain about it. C'est la vie.
When oh when are we ever going to get some techinically savvy politicians elected...
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
What if there actually was a pair of hot 18yo lesbians longing for me? I'd think it was spam and delete it. I'd be spam-damaged.
[sig]
The more than 50 cases brought to date by the FTC, the Department of Justice, state Attorneys General, and ISPs demonstrate CAN-SPAM's enforcement efficacy.
Since when did a simple number demonstrate efficiency? They got 50 spammers.. out of how many? 500? 5000? 50,000? Who knows.
We eliminated the two major drug cartels in town. Great JOB! I'm sure that there won't be even more rising from their ashes, and maybe even a turf war.
There still is a need for SPAM, so spammers will still exist.
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
It seemed to me that Can Spam was 100% government corruption. A few have been prosecuted, for show. However, spam has increased.
The purpose of Can Spam was to stop U.S. states from enacting their own legislation. Can Spam made all the laws in the states invalid.
This is so futile on so many different levels I can't stand it.
Of course the government is going to congratulate themselves on a job well done when they haven't done anything.
Cripes they just did this with the "Do Not Call" registry as well.
What cooks my noodle the most, however, is:
1. Slashdot thinks it's news. I feel like I'm getting poked with a stick here.
2. There isn't anything we could do about it even is we wanted to.
and 3. If it's so trivial and "ridiculous" why did I just take the time and effort to respond to this nonsense.
Mitchulskus
Funding.
Spine World
I am GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States. Due to political conditions in my country, I need to transport $100 BILLION DOLLARS US out of the country. I seek your assistance in arranging this bank transaction, and offer a 10 PERCENT ASSSISTANCE FEE in return....
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I don't have any numbers on the number of valid messages I've received. But I keep all my spam in folders by year so I can train my filters. These are the numbers of spams to my Yahoo address that Yahoo correctly tagged as spam:
2004: 16,350
2005: 10,942
A vast improvement. Maybe Yahoo is accepting fewer spam messages. Or maybe the number of people spamming me has decreased. Or maybe there have been fewer email viruses. Looking at this year's spam folder, it is clear the majority of spam is in multi-byte character set (e.g. Chinese or Korean).
For every problem there is a solution that is simple, obvious and wrong.