QuickLinks - Junk mail (spam)

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Issue no. 267 - 21 April 2003

• US - FTC Files Suit Against Sender of Porn 'Spam' (Washington Post)
  The Federal Trade Commission is suing one of the country's most active purveyors of pornographic junk e-mail, part of a stepped-up push by the agency to combat spam. see also Asks Court to Block Deceptive Spam Operation (Press Release) . The Federal Trade Commission has asked a U.S. District court judge to block an allegedly illegal spam operation that uses deceptively bland subject lines, false return addresses, and empty "reply-to" links to expose unsuspecting consumers, including children, to sexually explicit material. The agency alleges that Brian Westby used the spam in an attempt to drive business to an adult Web site, "Married But Lonely." The FTC has asked the court to order a halt to the deceptive spam, pending trial. It will seek a permanent injunction at trial. FTC v. Brian D. Westby.

• US - Ruling Backs Anti-Spam Activist (Washington Post)
  An Internet site that provides personal information about an alleged purveyor of mass e-mail is not harassment and does not need to be removed, a Maryland district court judge ruled.

Issue no. 266 - 6 April 2003

• US - Spam suits seek poetic justice (CNET News.com)
  Habeas is suing bulk e-mailers, accusing them of using its poetry without permission in an unusual use of trademark law to clamp down on spammers. Habeas puts a new twist on spam prevention by inserting some trademarked haiku lines into the header of an e-mail. When it launched, Habeas promised to closely track how its haikus were used and threatened to sue those who ran afoul of its trademarks and copyrights.

Issue no. 265 - 29 March 2003

• UK - Government crackdown on spam (BBC)
  The UK government is determined to crack down on the menace of unwanted and unsolicited e-mail. From October, a European Union directive will make unsolicited e-mails illegal across member states and the UK government is planning to have its legal framework in place at the same time. see also DTI Press Release and Public Consultation (closes 19 June 2003) on how to implement the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (DPEC) in the UK.

• Fighting spam for a good cause (CNET News.com)
  Two IBM researchers are proposing a new method of fighting spam that would force unfamiliar senders to donate to charity if they want to reach you.

• Hotmail takes steps to freeze spam (vnunet.com)
  Hotmail, the free web-based email service run by Microsoft, has introduced measures to crack down on spam. Over the past two weeks the company has been implanting a rule limiting to 100 the number of email addresses a sender can target in any 24-hour period.

Issue no. 264 - 23 March 2003

• US - Junk fax ruling may help antispam effort (CNET News.com)
  A federal appeals court said that a law restricting junk faxes was constitutional, setting a precedent that favors legal attempts to restrict unsolicited e-mail. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling, concluding that a 1991 federal law banning unsolicited fax advertising did not violate the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression. State of Missouri v. American Blast.

• Study suggests spam-stopping tricks (CNET News.com)
  In a new study of spamming tactics, Why Am I Getting All This Spam? the policy group Center for Democracy and Technology found the most successful methods of avoiding unwanted messages involved obscuring e-mail addresses or hiding them altogether.

Issue no. 263 - 16 March 2003

• UK - New rules tackle text adverts (BBC)
  Companies sending text message or e-mail adverts will have to get the permission of users before they do so under new rules. Regulations on new media have now been included in the latest edition of the code of advertising practice, which has been updated by the the Advertising Standards Authority to include new media.

Issue no. 262 - 9 March 2003

• US - Spammers hiding behind students (Network World)
  University networks already stressed by file-sharing programs, viruses and hackers now face a new threat: students who sublet their network access to spammers for as little as $20 per month. see also Tufts student to be disciplined for using university network for spam (AP) A Tufts University student will be disciplined for sending junk e-mail or spam through his computer that was connected to the university computer network.

Issue no. 261 - 2 March 2003

• FR - Legislators vote to ban spam (AFP)
  France's National Assembly has voted in favor of banning unsolicited e-mail sales messages, known as spam. The move, presented to the lower house of parliament in the form of government amendments to a law to "increase confidence in the digital economy," was approved by deputies at a first reading. Direct electronic marketing without prior consent would be allowed in certain circumstances where the parties involved were properly registered so as not to penalise e-business between companies. The deputies also called for Internet site hosts to be responsible for a "minimum of surveillance" of their pages, to prevent the diffusion of messages or images of racism, paedophilia and crimes against humanity.

• IETF to rally anti-spam forces (Wired)
  The Internet Research Task Force, the closest thing the Internet has to a governing body for all matters technical, inaugurated the Anti-Spam Research Group this week to develop "a taxonomy of the (spam) problem and the proposed solutions." The ASRG will seek to establish a more systematic, research-based framework for collaboration among those fighting spam.

• US - Spammers hiding behind students (Network World)
  University networks already stressed by file-sharing programs, viruses and hackers now face a new threat: students who sublet their network access to spammers for as little as $20 per month.

Issue no. 260 - 23 February 2003

• Tangled Up in Spam (New York Times)
  I know what your in-box looks like, and it isn't pretty. It looks like mine: a babble of come-ons and lies from hucksters and con artists. Tofind your real e-mail, you must wade through the torrent of fraud and obscenity known politely as ''unsolicited bulk e-mail'' and colloquially as spam. In a perverse tribute to the power of the online revolution, we are all suddenly getting the same mail.

Issue no. 257 - 26 January 2003

• US - Building a better spam trap (CNET News.com)
  Unsolicited e-mail messages, or spam, are on track to make up the majority of traffic on the Internet. But a group of researchers and developers hopes to halt that by coming up with better ways of blocking those messages from consumers' in-boxes. The Spam Conference, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was originally intended to be an informal gathering of 30 people or so. But more than 500 registered to discuss and debate the best way to battle the problem.

Issue no. 253 - 8 December 2002

• FR - La loi antispam ne se fait pas que des amis (Libération)
  Une dizaine d'associations professionnelles se liguent aujourd'hui pour adoucir l'interdiction de ces e-mails commerciaux non sollicités. Le spam, appelé encore «pourriel», est une plaie pour l'internaute. Mais la loi s'apprête à faire le ménage. Voila pourquoi les professionnels de la vente à distance, de la publicité et des services en ligne ne sont pas du tout satisfaits du sort que le gouvernement s'apprête à faire aux e-mails commerciaux. Dans leur collimateur, l'article 12 de l'avant-projet de loi relative à l'économie numérique. Ce texte reprend, en l'aménageant un peu, la directive européenne antispam de juillet 2001.

• The Spam Battle 2002: A Tactical Update (Karl A. Krueger)
  The past two years have been a watershed in the fight against spam, with many changes in the tactics used both by spammers seeking to abuse networks and by administrators seeking to protect them. Many of these changes have notable policy implications. As the cost of spam has increased for ISPs, businesses, and end users alike, keeping up with these methods has become increasingly essential to protect the usefulness of email.

Issue no. 252 - 30 November 2002

• CipherTrust wants your spam (CNET News.com)
  E-mail security company CipherTrust wants your spam. The company is calling on surfers of all stripes to help it wage a fight against spam by sending their unsolicited mass e-mail to its new Web site, Spamarchive.org. The idea is to create a vast public repository of spam, so makers of antispam tools can test their algorithms on the latest mass-messaging trends.

Issue no. 251 - 24 November 2002

• CipherTrust wants your spam (CNET News.com)
  E-mail security company CipherTrust wants your spam. The company is calling on surfers of all stripes to help it wage a fight against spam by sending their unsolicited mass e-mail to its new Web site, Spamarchive.org. The idea is to create a vast public repository of spam, so makers of antispam tools can test their algorithms on the latest mass-messaging trends.

• Death by Spam - The e-mail you know and love is about to vanish (Slate)
  by Kevin Werbach. It's time to give up: Despite the best efforts of legislators, lawyers, and computer programmers, spam has won. Spam is killing e-mail. Or at least it's about to destroy the e-mail we're used to.

• La Cnil fait pan sur les spams (Libération)
  Est-ce la fin des dizaines de messages non-sollicités qui encombrent, chaque jour, les boîtes aux lettres d'internautes toujours plus nombreux? Ce phénomène, appelé le «spam», vient de faire réagir la Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (Cnil), qui a publié un rapport sur le sujet, et alerté la justice à propos de cinq sociétés émettrices de spams. Halte au spam (CNIL). voir aussi Agir contre le spam (AFA).

Issue no. 250 - 17 November 2002

• UK - MPs to get porn protection filter (Guardian)
  The parliamentary computer network will be upgraded with a hi-tech filter to protect MPs and their staff from unsolicited pornographic emails, the government said.

• US - Federal, State, and Local Law Enforcers Tackle Deceptive Spam and Internet Scams (Press Realease)
  The Federal Trade Commission and 12 federal, state, and local law enforcement and consumer protection agencies today announced a four-part initiative launched to fight deceptive spam and Internet scams. Consumers who receiving large amounts of objectionable spam may want to change their e-mail address and follow some safer surfing tips suggested in the FTC's publication, E-mail Address Harvesting: How Spammers Reap What You Sow.

Issue no. 248 - 27 October 2002

• There's a lot of it about (Guardian)
  "Spam" emails, as they are called, have reached such a high level that researchers at IT business research firm Gartner revealed that their clients are reporting that between a third and a half of emails are spam. They calculate that spam traffic increased five-fold in 2001. The EU's data protection directive will tighten rules, ensuring that a company sending out mass emails must prove the recipient has given "explicit" permission to "opt-in" to receive offers before they are sent, and all messages must clearly state who they are from and allow a person to reply directly so they can be removed from the list.

• US - Direct marketers endorse anti-spam laws (ZDNet News)
  The Direct Marketing Association said that unsolicited e-mail has become so noxious that a federal anti-spam law is finally necessary. Until now, the DMA has opposed the majority of anti-spam bills in Congress or offered only lukewarm support. But the ever-rising tide of junk e-mail has made the influential trade association rethink its stand. The DMA told the Senate Commerce committee in April 2001 that a law governing spam might not be objectionable if it overruled about 20 state laws currently on the books and prohibited only "the practice of sending fraudulent electronic mail messages" with forged headers. Now the association says it will lobby for legislation that has both of those requirements and also provides a way for recipients to remove themselves from future mailings. But a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "

• US - WA - Spammer must pay $98,000 (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
  A prolific e-mailer was ordered yesterday to pay more than $98,000 for flooding computers several years ago with dubious offers to make money through the Internet. A Washington State judge found that Jason Heckel of Salem, Ore., violated the state's law against sending misleading and unsolicited commercial e-mail that could not be traced. The judge fined the 28-year-old Heckel the maximum penalty, $2,000, for one violation of the rule. The rest of the penalty is for state's attorneys' fees and court costs. The total is $98,197.74.

Issue no. 247 - 19 October 2002

• Spam Blocker Has Opposite Effect (Wired)
  Users of SpamNet, a popular peer-to-peer unsolicited e-mail filtering service, had grown accustomed to virtually junk-free inboxes. So when spam suddenly started pouring in, SpamNet users weren't very happy. Some even began to suspect that SpamNet was nothing more than a scam intended to gather e-mail addresses that could then be sold to spammers.

Issue no. 246 - 29 September 2002

• A Bounty on Spammers (CIO Insight)
  By Lawrence Lessig Spam is a blight on our high-tech civilization. Lawrence Lessig has an idea: force spammers who don't label their junk e-mail to pay $10,000 to the first recipient who finds them.

• UK - Watchdog gets tough on text spam (Register)
  ICSTIS - the premium rate telephone services watchdog - has warned that it will come down hard on any operators misleading phone users with dodgy money-making text messaging scams.

• US - California - Governor signs bills to stop unwanted faxes and text messages (AP)
  Gov. Gray Davis signed bills that ban unwanted faxed advertisements and unsolicited text messages on cell phones. With his signature, Davis eliminated California's law against sending unsolicited faxes to allow a stronger federal law to take effect. The federal law requires that companies sending unsolicited faxes for advertising get permission before faxing those ads. The state law struck down required that unsolicited advertisements sent over fax machines have a toll-free number so fax owners could be removed from the phone lists. The other two bills signed prohibit businesses from sending advertisements through text messaging on cellular phones or pagers and make minor changes to the state's do-not-call list for telemarketers.

• US - California sues marketing firm for spamming (Mercury News)
  Signaling a new, get-tough attitude toward spammers, California's attorney general filed the first state-led suit against a bulk-mail marketing firm.

• E-mail onslaught to feed anti-spam firms (CNET News.com)
  Spam may be a costly and seemingly unstoppable nuisance, but the trend offers an opportunity for companies developing technology to fight it, according to a new report from market research firm IDC. The report predicts that a growing glut of spam will help propel the worldwide daily volume of e-mail from 31 billion messages this year to 60 billion in 2006. The real battle over spam will likely take place at the technology level.

• Hotmail puts squeeze on spam (BBC)
  In a deal with anti-spam firm Brightmail, Microsoft hopes to significantly decrease the number of unsolicited mails reaching Hotmail subscribers' accounts.

• Les messageries électroniques croulent sous la publicité sauvage (Le Monde)
  Le nombre annuel de publipostages indésirables, le spam, que chaque internaute reçoit pourrait passer de 571 en 2001 à 1 500 en 2006. Cette pratique commerciale illégale, à laquelle il est difficile d'échapper, exploite des robots logiciels arpentant la Toile pour y traquer les adresses

Issue no. 245 - 15 September 2002

• US - Be wary of Washington's spam solution (CNET News)
  About three dozen high-level lobbyists met quietly at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to concoct a way to drastically reduce the deluge of unsolicited e-mail. The invitation-only lunch meeting, which lasted about two hours, started a process that could result in an industry agreement on new laws or self-regulation.

Issue no. 244 - 7 September 2002

• Children at mercy of e-mail porn (BBC)
  Junk e-mails which encourage users to access pornographic websites are becoming an increasing menace almost impossible to control, it has emerged. An investigation by BBC One's Watchdog programme found even Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that filter out pornographic or other unwanted material are often unable to stop rogue e-mails arriving in mail boxes.

• UK - Charity caught in anti-spam crossfire (Yahoo UK)
  A religious charity in London recently discovered first-hand the dangers that can accompany new measures to stem the tide of junk email, when the organisation's site was yanked offline without notice. The charity's Internet service provider, Netcetera, said it had received a report of junk email originating from the charity from a service called SpamCop, which is designed to send complaints to the ISP from which spam appears to originate, and had promptly switched the Web site off. Netcetera said its policy is to shut down sites reported for spam, and puts the burden on Web site owners to prove that the report is wrong.

Issue no. 243 - 31 August 2002

• UK - Labour MP demands action on email porn (Guardian)
  Labour MP Derek Wyatt, chairman of the parliamentary internet committee, has called on the government to bring internet service providers under stricter control in an effort to stem the flow of unsolicited pornographic emails. He said ISPs should be made responsible for any unsolicited emails received by their subscribers from pornography sites.

Issue no. 242 - 30 July 2002

• Spam filter: A boon or a bomb? (CNET News.com)
  New software promises more order for your in-box, separating the critical messages from the 'reply all' excesses. But it could pose a political problem for managers.

Issue no. 241 - 24 July 2002

• Canning spam: Latest resources (Net Family Newsletter)
  If you sense it's getting worse - all those unsolicited emails about viagra, body-enhancing products, low-interest mortgages, and even porn on the Web - you have good instincts: "The quantity of e-mailed advertising pitches for these and other fabulous opportunities is about to increase dramatically," reports Wired News in a piece about how marketers get our email addresses. The numbers are daunting. "Unsolicited email from adult-orientated Websites has increased 450% since June 2001," reports Nua Internet Surveys, citing CyberAtlas research. Even though research out this week shows that spamming is a complete waste of advertisers' time. see also Why SpamNet is the only anti-spam app on my PC (AnchorDesk).

Issue no. 240 - 14 July 2002

• Spam blocks eat up real mail (CNet News.com)
  Sometimes-indiscriminate blacklists have become a key weapon in the war against unsolicited bulk e-mail.

Issue no. 239 - 30 June 2002

• Hitting spam below the belt (CNET News.com)
  Spam, conventionally known as unsolicited commercial e-mail, is the No. 1 privacy-related complaint that consumers make to seal and certification program Truste. Nearly half, or 48 percent, of all complaints filed with us are spam-related.

Issue no. 236 - 8 June 2002

• AU - Spammer sues anti-spammer (ZDNet)
  An alleged Australian spammer is suing an anti-spam advocate after being blacklisted by a spam prevention Web site, in what is believed to be a first of its kind case worldwide.

• US - Court Shuts down Cyberscam Permanently (FTC)
  At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a U.S. District Court has ordered the perpetrator of an Internet scheme to halt his illegal practices. The defendant employed more than 5,500 copycat Web addresses to divert surfers from their intended Internet destinations to one of his sites, and hold them captive while he pelted their screens with a barrage of adult-oriented ads.

Issue no. 235 - 20 May 2002

• EU - Spam legislation stalls again (Europemedia.net)
  The European Parliament’s Citizens' Rights Committee and the European Telecoms Council of Ministers are deadlocked over the issue of whether to allow member states to decide if web surfers should opt-in or opt-out of unsolicited e-mail marketing schemes, prolonging the already-delayed anti-spam legislation.

Issue no. 234 - 11 May 2002

• USA - The Constitution And Spam (FindLaw)
  by Anita Ramasastry. Is There A First Amendment Right To Send Unsolicited Faxes And Email? Since 1991, a federal law, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), has prohibited unsolicited ("junk") fax advertisements in all fifty states, and allowed recipients to sue the businesses that send them. But in March, in State of Missouri v. American Blast Fax, Inc., a federal court in Missouri ruled that the TCPA violates the First Amendment.

Issue no. 232 - 28 April 2002

• EU - EP Committee again votes for 'national choice' on e-spam (EurActiv)
  During its second reading on 18 April, the EP Citizens' Rights Committee decided that users should have the right to refuse 'cookies' and that it is up to Member States to decide for opt-in or opt-out on spam. see also No unlimited storage of electronic user data (EP Notebook).

Issue no. 231 - 14 April 2002

• Australia - Keeping Spam In The Can (DCITA news release)
  The National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) is conductingan examination into how to counter the problem of unsolicited bulkemail, commonly known as 'spam.' see also Spam saturates the net (Australian IT).

• USA - California Fax Spam Bill Clears State Senate Committee (Newsbytes)
  A California State Senate committee approved a bill that would ban the delivery of unsolicited faxes. The bill repeals a California law that requires fax users to opt out of receiving junk faxes.

• New breed spam filter slashes junk email (New Scientist)
  A new breed of spam-filtering technology that combines peer-to-peer communications with machine learning could intercept nearly all unwanted email, according to its creators.

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