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.
"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
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!!
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.
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"
... we'd still be relying on SPEWS to bully innocent bystanders
By "innocent bystanders," do you mean people helping to finance an ISP which caters to spammers?
into bullying ISPs into shutting down spammers after the event.
So you would prefer that the ISPs not shut down spammers?
You obviously don't understand SPEWS.
SPEWS does not wait for spam to happen. They list IP blocks which have been repeated sources for spam. If an ISP sells services to spammers, their IP blocks will end up listed on SPEWs. Those using the SPEWS list can block all traffic from that ISP -- including traffic from spammers who will use those IP blocks in the future.
Before SPEWS, "pink contracts" were becoming all-too common. A pink contract is a contract between an Internet service provider and a spammer in which the spammer is exempted from the usual terms of service prohibiting spamming. Pink contracts came into existence because ISPs could charge the spammer much more than they would a normal client. Such contracts were quite profitable.
So how do you fight against such practices? You blacklist the ISP's IP blocks. That means that "normal" users will find that the ISP cannot reliably deliver e-mail. Those users will pressure the ISP into not writing pink contracts and not tolerating spamming. A blacklisted ISP will not be able to survive on pink contract revenue alone and, thus, will be forced to stop writing pink contracts in order to remain solvent.
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.
Some people seem to be unclear on the definition of lesbian.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Or who have no choice with regards to ISPs because there is only one active in their area?
So they live with dial-up. If the only provider of cable television in my area is NAMBLA, then I'll live with the seven local broadcast channels rather than give NAMBLA my money.
Stupid argument, not agreeing to using 'collatoral damage' to force things onto an ISP is not the same as not wanting those ISPs to remove spammers.
That's not what the OP said. He said "bullying ISPs into shutting down spammers after the event" as if the fact that it was done after the spam was sent was somehow the important point.
As long as you and other SPEWS proponents cannot see that difference, you will by most be seen as bullies and as doing more damage then good.
I don't care how I'm seen as long as I'm helping reduce spam. And I've seen no compelling argument to make me believe that SPEWs is ineffective. Quite the contrary. I've seen more and more instances of ISPs refusing to write pink contracts after being listed on SPEWS.
Hmm, you do not see the similarity to the reasoning of those who justify killing innocent bystanders in order to put pressure on the USA to change its policies?
I hardly think that someone bouncing your e-mail is akin to killing people. Now you're just being silly.
You're also missing something important: It's not illegal for me to refuse your e-mail at my server. I can refuse it because your IP address is on SPEWS, because I don't like your ISP, because your sysadmin "dissed" me in a newsgroup, because your IP address has a prime number in it, or because you tried to send the mail during the witching hour. You don't have a legal right to deliver your e-mail to my server.
On the other hand, SPEWS contributers do have a Constitutionally guaranteed right (free speech and freedom of the press) to publish a list of address blocks which they believe are spam sources. There is nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical about doing that.
Again, if you've got a better plan than SPEWS, what is it?
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.