Spam is a Growing Problem

Spam is an annoying misuse of an essential service -- email.

According to dictionary.com:

(spm) Unsolicited e-mail, often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail.

An article on the Federal Trade Commission's website reads,

"computer security experts estimate that as much as 30 percent of all spam is relayed by compromised computers located in home offices and living rooms, but controlled from afar."

But, how do spammers get our email addresses in the first place?
A spammer purchases an email list from someone who "harvested" or collected email addresses off of the internet.

Another factor in this growing problem, is spam at the workplace. A company with 10 employees who each make $50,000 a year and receive 10 emails a day, including one spam message, will lose around $230 a year due to bad productivity because of the spam.

Not surprisingly, the US is the 1st on Spamhaus' list of the 10 worst spam origin countries. The US is followed by China, Japan, Russia, Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Hong Kong. Also on Spamhaus, you can find a list of the 10 worst spammers.

To reduce the amount of spam in your inbox:

• Don't expose your email address online

• Check privacy policies to see if the company you are giving your address to will try to sell it

• Read the whole form before you submit it to uncheck check boxes that would subscribe you to special offer newsletters

• Use a unique address (spammers often try to spam email addresses that occur in the dictionary)

• Use 2 email addresses -- one for personal messages and one for newsletters and websites

• Use an email filter to block spam

• Report spam to your ISP or the spammer's ISP

• Report spam to the Federal Trade Commission (spam@uce.gov)
  

In recent years, laws have been put in place to slow down spam. The CAN-SPAM Act directly affects what commercial emailers can and can't do. According to the Federal Trade Commission:

• It bans false or misleading header information. Your email's "From," "To," and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.

• It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.

• It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

• It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising.

Additional fines are provided for commercial emailers who not only violate the rules described above, but also:

• "harvest" email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email

• generate email addresses using a "dictionary attack" – combining names, letters, or numbers into multiple permutations

• use scripts or other automated ways to register for multiple email or user accounts to send commercial email

• relay emails through a computer or network without permission – for example, by taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without authorization.

The law allows the DOJ to seek criminal penalties, including imprisonment, for commercial emailers who do or conspire to:

• use another computer without authorization and send commercial email from or through it


• use a computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial email messages to deceive or mislead recipients or an Internet access service about the origin of the message


• falsify header information in multiple email messages and initiate the transmission of such messages


• register for multiple email accounts or domain names using information that falsifies the identity of the actual registrant


• falsely represent themselves as owners of multiple Internet Protocol addresses that are used to send commercial email messages.

To find the latest spam outbreaks, check out this site.