President Bush recently signed the “Can-Spam” bill. This, the first federal law regulating spam, will go into effect on New Year’s Day, 2004. While supporters praise the bill, cynics feel that it will have little effect on the amount of spam which is escalating daily. The bill would make falsifying e-mail headers and/or improperly labeling “sexually oriented” messages a federal crime. While the bill succeeds in creating a national standard, it also takes precedence over state laws, many of which were considered to be stronger than the new national law.
The Federal Trade Commission will enforce the spam law. The FTC is also given the authority to set up a “do not e-mail” list comparable to the National Do Not Call registry. Many analysts have warned that this reliance on the honesty of spammers could possibly worsen the growth of spam. Since spamming is a global epidemic, it is also possible that this new U.S. law would have little effect internationally. Gartner, a respected research and advisory firm, said it is likely that spam would worsen despite the existence of this new federal law.
According to research firm MessageLabs, in May 2003 spam accounted for more than 50 percent of all business e-mail traffic and by December more than two-thirds of business e-mail was spam. Without a doubt spam is ruining an otherwise efficient system of communication.
We will all have to wait and see if this new law is effective. In the mean time you can do your part to curb spam by not clicking on anything in an unsolicited e-mail and by not purchasing anything from spam. If the spammers don’t make any money, perhaps spam will disappear.
Full text of bill can be viewed here.
