August 18, 2003

The Bandwagon to Fight Spam Hits a Bump

My spin: Spam. I get hundreds of it per day. What to do? Nothing much, but be fast with the delete button I guess. The government, as this article relates, is trying to do something about it. But spam is much easier to send and the sender to hide from than phone calls and faxes.

NY Times News Clip: Unwanted e-mail advertising has become the latest quality-of-life nuisance ó not unlike squeegee men ó that politicians love to attack.

This spring, a consensus on spam seemed to be emerging among House and Senate leaders, Internet service providers and the direct marketing industry, which had dropped its objection to any regulation of e-mail. Several bills were introduced, all narrowly focused on fraudulent e-mail that misrepresented the sender or the product for sale.

Then a monkey wrench landed in this otherwise smooth legislative process. In June, the Federal Trade Commission started collecting phone numbers from people who do not want to be called by telemarketers. Phone solicitors who call numbers on the list, once it takes effect in October, can be punished with large fines. Overnight, the do-not-call list became one of the most popular government initiatives in recent memory, with people registering an average of a million phone numbers a day in the first month. (full story - $$ )

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