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Spam Privacy Government United States Politics

Tweaking the CAN-SPAM Act 109

Posted by Zonk from the modified-pork dept.
rbochan writes "The Register is reporting that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is consulting on proposed changes to the CAN-SPAM Act. Changes would include clarifying the definitions of the terms person and sender, and altering the time allowed for a sender to to honor an opt-out request. The FTC proposal is available as a PDF on the official FTC site." From the article: "Critics have accused the Act of being narrow and weak, accusations that may be hard to deny given that the US sends more spam than any other, according to a recent report by anti-virus firm Sophos."
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Tweaking the CAN-SPAM Act More

Tweaking the CAN-SPAM Act

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  • In your face China! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:37AM (#12589175)
    US sends more spam than any other
    Whoooo, number 1 baby, yeah!

  • Of course it doesn't stop spam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doktor Memory ( 237313 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:39AM (#12589192) Journal
    The purpose of the CAN-SPAM act wasn't to stop spam, it was to legitimize spam sent by the DMA and its members.

    • Re:Of course it doesn't stop spam (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Perhaps they should have called it CANT-SPAM, to avoid confusion?

    • ...but it was supposed to label it (Score:5, Informative)

      by jfengel ( 409917 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @11:10AM (#12589524) Homepage Journal
      The purpose of the CAN-SPAM act wasn't to stop spam, it was to legitimize spam sent by the DMA and its members. ...but make it easier to filter out.

      I don't know whether the DMA mebers are complying or not. Most spam is still sent from outside the DMA's members. So we sure can't turn off our bayesian spam filters.

      The theory was that the US would crack down on those people, who according to TFA are right here in the US, leaving us with just the easily-filterable DMA-approved ads.

      That hasn't happened yet, perhaps because the FBI has more important things on its mind (i.e. terrorism). I can't imagine that the DMA is happy, because their actual sales pitches are getting lost among the scams, phishes, and frauds.

      I'll worry about how evil the DMA is once I stop getting 92 spams a day for C$ALIS.

    • You are obviously jaded by your exposure to what you perceive as reality. I recommend that you pick up a copy of Bill Clinton's autobiography [amazon.com] or simply read the White House press briefing site [whitehouse.gov] for a while.

      You will quickly find that your current way of thinking is just ... too difficult for you. You don't need to go to all that effort. Relax, and let them do the work.

      If you feel you must stay informed, watch a little CNN or Fox News (one or the other, not both), so you don't have to constantly hea

  • CAN CONGRESS (Score:5, Informative)

    by lazuli42 ( 219080 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:39AM (#12589193) Homepage Journal
    What we really need is a federal CAN CONGRESS act. Please, as though this is a problem that legislation can fix. If Congress really, truly wanted to end spam, why not allocate some grant money to improving anti-spam technology?

    • Re:CAN CONGRESS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by J Barnes ( 838165 )
      Because it doesn't matter to them if the action they take actually works, they just want to be able to take credit for taking action.

      You have to judge by what sounds better in a campaign stump speech:

      "I facilitated the allocation of grant money to a series of projects that resulted in technological improvements that ware eventually incorporated into many software packages, eventually having a slight reduction on the amount of spam that reaches your email inbox"

      or

      "I passed legislation to curb the tide of

      • Re:CAN CONGRESS (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        curb the tide of spam

        I can't help but picture great roiling waves of pink pork washing slurpily over the shoreline at the eastern edge of the Sea of Spam. Be sure to get off the beach before 6:23 PM.
      • well one could vote for the first and the claim the second. they just have to make legislation that facilitate the allocation of grant money to a series of projects that etc ....

    • No such thing (Score:2, Insightful)

      by subl33t ( 739983 )
      There is no such thing as anti-spam technology.

      Spam filters, RBL lists, etc don't stop spam they just suppress it.

      Spam begins with a desire for $$. Eliminate the payoff for soam and spam will die.

      • Re:No such thing (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by mforbes ( 575538 )
        I'm having fun being incredibly pedantic today. Therefore:

        Soam: n. A chain by which a leading horse draws a plow.

        What has that got to do with killing spam?

        (in the reverse of the "I know I'll be modded down for this" precursor to posts we see too often on /., I'll say this: anyone with half a brain would never mod this up. It's not meant to be insightful, etc, and even to me is only barely funny. Go use your mod points on someone who deserves them.)

    • Re:CAN CONGRESS (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nytewynd ( 829901 )
      Congress simply jumped on spam because they know people hate it and want to be associated with attempting to stop it. What congressman wouldn't want to run their next campain as the guy that stopped porn from getting into a 10 year old's inbox?

      It's not unlike the steroid nonsense. A couple of days ago one congressman implied to David Stern (NBA Commissioner) that the Piston/Pacer brawl might be a result of 'Roid Rage, simply because there was not any proof that Ron Artest was not taking steriods. Cong

    • Re:CAN CONGRESS (Score:3, Informative)

      by pilgrim23 ( 716938 )
      America has always had the best government money can buy and Spammers have FAR more money then the rest of us. QED

      • America has always had the best government money can buy and Spammers have FAR more money then the rest of us. QED

        Yeah, but they're having trouble moving it out of Nigeria.

      • Congress certainly is NOT the best government money can buy. You should be able to buy a MUCH better government than that.

        However, it's not the spammers buying government that made this mess. It's Congress trying to create the appearance that they're Doing Something Useful, without have the skill set to *actually* do anything useful, and (if you want to give them some credit, which they may or may not deserve), they were trying to stay out of serious trouble with either the First Amendment or Legitimate

    • The government won't solve the problem. It doesn't threaten the lives of U.S. citizens. And on top of that, any money allocated to such research would come from budgets deemed non-critical to the nation's safety, such as the National Endowment for the Arts or the Department of Education. No Money Left Behind, and such.
    • Considering that most of the spam I received before and after CAN-SPAM was clearly illegal under existing laws, it's the lack of enforcement from the executive branch that bothers me more.

  • Whoohooo! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoaoPinheiro ( 749991 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:39AM (#12589197) Homepage
    "It is also proposing to shorten from 10 days to three the time a sender may take before honouring a recipient's opt-out request;"

    Yeah, so now they only have 3 days to sell my address to 100 other spam lists.

    • Re:Whoohooo! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mazarin5 ( 309432 )
      Oh, they have all the time in the world to whore out your inbox. They are only restricted in how long they can fill it with shit themselves.
    • It won't even take that long. Many of these operations are the ones that own the multiple lists. So, within that 3 days, they can simply dump your name onto List B, C, D, E, F... and then sell all of them at their leisure.

      CAN-SPAM should be repealed. Immediately.
    • That particular sender's not planning to send you any more mail, so you're automatically removed from the list. That fairly identical-looking piece of spam you got last week was sent by my evil twin Zoot, and she's promised not to do it again either.

  • Libertarians (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joeljkp ( 254783 ) <<joeljkparker> <at> <gmail.com>> on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:41AM (#12589215)
    I'm curious: what do the libertarian-minded say about CAN-SPAM? That the Internet can handle its own problems, perhaps?
    • Um... has Congress handled it?
    • That the Internet can handle its own problems, perhaps? I don't think Libertarians belive harrasment should be legal.

      • Re:Libertarians (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by NickFortune ( 613926 )
        I don't think Libertarians belive harrasment should be legal.

        That probably depends upon the libertarian. In the context of the libertarian there seem to be three basic types.

        Type one are the classic libertarians, who are pro individial civic rights. They tend to oppose censorship and government snooping, and to promote open standards. Generally they have a sense of proportion. They either think harassment should be illegal, or failing that, that they should have a right to shoot you if you harass th

    • I'm not a hard core libertarian, so my opinion doesn't count. However, I am not comfortable with allowing misleading ads for products of questionable authenticity being sent out under irrelevant subject lines with false claims as to the identity of the sender.

      Perhaps among other changes, the law should be modified so that when it can be shown that SPAM was sent to someone by a third party using my e-mail address, I would then be allowed to sue the sender in civil court for the damage to my reputation... w

    • Q. What do the libertarian-minded say about CAN-SPAM?

      A. The government should not be spending my money protecting me from the internet! I can do that myself. The free market provides spam filters if I feel that I need them. But, I don't trust the folks that make those, so I don't use them. I read every piece of mail and analyze it in case its from Liberals trying to get onto my computer. Not only that, but have you seen those guys working on the phone lines? They look suspicious as hell, too. I bet the

    • I don't know that there is a solution to this problem that can be solved by law. The real problem is the cost of e-mail is essentially free. I know it would be unpopular, but just imagine if an ISP would require a fee of $.01 to receive a message for each recipient. The e-mail isn't delivered until the fee is paid. If somebody wanted to send a spam message to 1 million AOL members, it would cost them $10,000. This is a simple and cost effective solution for reducing (but not necessarily eliminating) the num

      • I think something like this would make people WANT to learn a little about their computers.
        If you're getting hit with an extra $5-$10 a month on your ISP bill because some virus/trojan/(spy|ad|mal)ware is sending out thousands of spam emails, you're going to want to know what you need to do to clean up your computer.
      • I'm all about stiffer legislative penalties and more consumer control over the listing of their information. But I'm ALSO for the market improving its filtering, and I don't think it requires charging, and I don't think there's a good way to charge.

        The key point that IS true is that spam will exist as long as stupid people buy stuff from spam in sufficient quantity. Short of improving education and waiting 30 years, the only solution is to keep the spam from getting to most users.

        Here's what we really n
    • Sure, simply remove the law that prevents us from hunting down and killing the spammer.

    • Re:Libertarians (Score:3, Insightful)

      by billstewart ( 78916 )
      Libertarians think that free-ipod signature lines are generally fraudulent, but sometimes they think it's fun to feed trolls....
      • Libertarians don't think that governments are competent enough to solve most difficult problems, so when a bill named YOU-CAN-SPAM doesn't stop spammers, we're not surprised. Some of us care enough to actually read the bill, and we're even less surprised.
      • Libertarians like market-based solutions, and would like someone out there in the market to develop them. And lots of people

  • Captalism as its finest (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:41AM (#12589216) Homepage
    It all speaks to our fondest value in the us, evident in places as diverse as SPAM, excessive plastic surgery, and corporate welfare/rights: so long is someone can believably assert that they are "just trying to make a buck," our national consciousness and our lawmaking machinery are \\absolutley loath\\ to do anything to slow them down, whether the argument is ethnical, environmental, logistical, criminal...
    • Well the problem is wording it correctly. Just like setting up Spam filters.

      I work for a small buisness. I don't Spam. But I do advertise via email. How is this not evil? Well I know that a customer is having problem with X and my previous solution was to expensive for them to fix. A week later I found a cheaper solution that stills works. So I email the customer saying Hey I found a better solution to the problem and it only costs $y

      Now if the CAN-SPAM act was to strick this honest buisness dealing

      • Is it still your email address? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Friday May 20, 2005 @11:25AM (#12589705)
        I work for a small buisness. I don't Spam. But I do advertise via email.
        The key is how do you get those addresses you send your ads to.
        How is this not evil? Well I know that a customer is having problem with X and my previous solution was to expensive for them to fix. A week later I found a cheaper solution that stills works. So I email the customer saying Hey I found a better solution to the problem and it only costs $y
        So you, personally, are sending an email to follow up on a contact that was initiated by the potential customer that that potential customer personally sent to you.

        So far, so good.
        Now if the CAN-SPAM act was to strick this honest buisness dealing could be considered Spam which it is not.
        Dude, you have nothing to worry about as long as the DMA can pay lobbyists.
        Ok you say that is fine because it is one on one comunication. So let me move it 1 step further. Say I know 5 clients that have the probem and I send them the email.
        How did you get their addresses?
        following this pattern there will be a point where I move from normal sales to spamming.
        No. It isn't about quantity.

        It's about unsolicitated commercial ads.

        If 10,000 people have personally contacted you looking for Product X, and you personally reply to those 10,000 people saying that you have Product X in stock, that would be fine.
        That is why we have a hard time making laws on excessive things because they will could become to a point where they hinder good intentional uses.
        Nope. It's quite easy as a matter of fact.

        The key is HOW the addresses you are sending to are obtained.

        In a legitimate, non-spam business, they will be obtained by those people giving you their email addresses and expecting to receive emails from you.

        In a spam business, emails are harvested and/or purchased in bulk.

        All that the US needs to do is to define non-spam as email sent by a company that you have provided your info to and for that company to have a record of that (your IP address, your email address, the web page/domain you were at when you provided it).

        Anything else is spam.

        No "affiliates", no "partners", no one other than that one company you provided the information to.

        Legitimate companies will not have a problem with this. Give them 6 months to update their mailing lists to meet the new criteria.

        Spammers (and companies using them) are the only ones that will be affected by this.

        This is very bad news for all those legitimate banks that purchase email leads from spammers, but I really don't give a rat's ass about whether they like it or not. I'm tired of getting mortgage spam and I'm tired of people saying that their email was flagged as spam just because they were discussing their mortgage options with their bank.
        • Spam: Unsolicited Bulk Messaging.
          COI: Confirmed Opt-In, as a two step process with two actions being intitated by the recipient as proof of confirmation.

          If your mailing list is COI, you have _absolutely_ no trouble with any law.
        • I dunno man... I think it should be legal to send unsolicited mail if the sender has a reasonable amount of certainty that the recipient would benefit from the mail. I would have to say that a large portion of my company's business comes from respondents to bulk email. We spend a lot of time visiting industry sites and searching in Google to identify potential customers, and the diligence pays off in sales figures. If it became totally illegal to email people who you 'don't have a business relationship wit
      • I work for a small buisness. I don't Spam. But I do advertise via email. How is this not evil? Well I know that a customer is having problem with X and my previous solution was to expensive for them to fix. A week later I found a cheaper solution that stills works. So I email the customer saying Hey I found a better solution to the problem and it only costs $y It is not spam if you have a previous business relationship with them and if you comply if they tell you they are not interested anymore by your sol

      • I think that the people that respond to spam are basically illiterate. The see the (obvious to the rest of us) Subject line and go: "Hmmm, I bet I could figure out what that means by sounding it out phonetically." They then do, and reply out of self-satisfaction and then get caught in the spammers' web.
    • Marx's critiques of capitalism, as written in that utterly dull and wildly bogus book Das Kapital, assumed that workers weren't able to afford to own the means of production and that therefore the evil nasty greedy rich capitalists who *could* afford them would be able to ruthlessly exploit them. It wasn't really true back in 1867, but it's certainly not true in 2005. You can buy a new computer for two weeks' wages at Macdonald's that's more powerful than an early 1980s mainframe or supercomputer, or a de

  • I'd make one change (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:51AM (#12589305) Homepage
    I'd call it the Can't Spam Act.

  • why new laws? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Monoman ( 8745 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:51AM (#12589312) Homepage
    Existing laws should be applicable. Lets see spam at a minimum usually involves

    * forgery with the intention to deceive.
    * theft of service
    * trespassing

    Reshape the existing laws to include new technologies.

    While we are at it, go after the end benificiary of spam. The ones selling a product or service. I know some will say that it is too easy to set someone up. Is it? In the U.S. one is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Hmm... we should be able to spot a setup.

    Heck why laws at all? Most times the parties involved cross multiple boundries/jurisdictions. Laws, in the long run, are not the way to go. The technology needs fixing

    • Before "CAN-SPAM", the various states would pass their own anti-spam laws.

      Some states had really good (anti-spammer) laws.

      Some didn't.

      So the DMA lobbied the government to deal with the "problem" of different states having different laws.

      The end result ... one worthless Federal law that trumps all of the state laws.
      • The end result ... one worthless Federal law that trumps all of the state laws.
        Federalism [socialstudieshelp.com]: A system of government that creates a central government and local state governments. The powers of the national and state governments are divided and balanced.
      • Some states had aggressively worded anti-spam laws, but that didn't make spammers go away. Some states had laws that let spam recipients, or at least their ISPs, sue spammers, and while they had serious problems with the Interstate Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, enough spammers did send spam to people in their own states that used ISPs within the state that occasionally you could have fun with a weekend of spammer-hunting (back before states started making laws against Internet Hunting, anyways :
    • Here is my issue- like so many laws, this seems like it will punish legitimate businesses, and let the most egregious violators go. Fining a business (big or small) for sending spam, that sounds great, but the only ones who will be hurt are legitimate businesses. The people who send huge mailings from countries that even educated people can't find on a map, advertising larger penis size etc, will keep getting away with it.
      I just would hate to see the independent store who sends emails get spanked because
    • Existing laws should be applicable. Lets see spam at a minimum usually involves

      * forgery with the intention to deceive.
      * theft of service
      * trespassing

      I've always thought the illegal act of Fraud was sufficient. Fraud -- A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

      One big thing with spam is that a majority of it comes from China or close by geographically, so no US laws including CAN SPAM or Fraud would do anything. Fortunately, I have spamassassin rules that get trig
      • Spammers will sell whatever they think they can make money on. Some of the spam is certainly fraud, but lots of it is selling people things that they want, like pr0n, or Non-prescription Herbal Viagra Substitute Pills, or real Viagra with Canadian prescriptions, or introductions to mortgage brokers with great rates (at least compared to the 1980s :-), or time-share vacations in the Caribbean, and there's not necessarily anything dishonest about it - they just don't mind annoying 99.99% of the people who re
  • You can't polish a turd.

  • Give me the tools to defend my network!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DaGoodBoy ( 8080 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:55AM (#12589346) Homepage
    All I want is the right for a simple small claims mediation. Let me shoulder the burden of prosecution! These guys are absolutely punishing my email servers and bandwidth [awtrey.com]. Let me hit them back! Here is how it would go:

    Me: I didn't ask for this email and I have no relationship with the vendor. Here is the proof that I got spam for their product, directing me to the following websites they control...

    Mediator: Do you have proof that DaGoodBoy agreed to be solicited?

    Spammer: Uh...

    Mediator: That will be $500 bucks. Next!

    If I lose, I'll agree to pay $500 for the trouble. Hell, let this happen on a teleconference with a mediation company sanctioned by the government instead of court. I bet I could make a living just from persuing my spammers!

    Either this or just look the other way while I set up an anonymous payout deadpool for the members of the ROKSO list... :)

  • Sponsor of Can Spam Act? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SloWave ( 52801 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:55AM (#12589357) Journal

    Who is the Senate sponsor of the Can_Span act? I sure will give him/her a piece of my mind. It doesn't matter if it is my Senator or not. Whoever it is has to accept responsability for putting this piece of trash into law and needs to hear from everyone affected by it.

  • Legislation (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tedington ( 842076 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @10:59AM (#12589393) Journal

    The Government doesn't know how to solve problems, all they know how to do is create legislation using their limited understanding of the problem. "Spam is bad, therefore we should make it illegal!" Nice job, congress, CAN-SPAM has been around for how long now? anyone notice a difference? Gmail does more to can my spam than any government ass could do anyday.

    Wouldn't it be funny if there was a SPAM lobby that was paying fat sacks of cash money to sentaors and congressmen to "inform" them as to the benefits of SPAM? 'if we don't spam peoeple, we will be a country of small penis-ed, non-working-at-home, erectile dysfunctioned, people WITHOUT FREE IPODS!'

  • If the spam is required to be labeled with a subject line starting with ADV: it makes it very easy to filter and easy for a judge and jury to determine that it does break the law when they don't include it. Under the California law, if you leave out required labeling, it is deceptive allowing individuals to sue for $1000 for each one.
    • CA also required opt-in, whereas You Can Spam is opt out. That's why the federal law preempts the state laws, they were too tough on the spammers.
      • Too many people have been paid off to get rid of the I-CAN-SPAM act. But, if it made to be easy to filter, and easy to sue for anything that makes it passed the filter (because they broke the law), then the I-CAN-SPAM act won't smell too bad.
    • Spam is about consent, not content. What about spam which does not ask for money? Phishing?
    • If the spam is required to be labeled with a subject line starting with ADV: it makes it very easy to filter and easy for a judge and jury to determine that it does break the law when they don't include it.

      That would be more than nice. While they are at it, maybe all of those junk snail mail ads that say "Important account information" or "Dated material" should be less deceptively labeled as advertisements.
    • At most 1% of my spam ever bothered obeying those laws; it was too easy to filter out. I'm sure it's helpful to know that I can sue that poor Nigerian Dictator's widow who's trying to get her husband's ill-gotten gains out of the country the next time she visits California. In most cases, spammers are sending mail from outside of California, so they're not subject to California jurisdiction; it may occasionally be possible to catch a spammer who's actually sending spam from here. I've forgotten if YOU-CA

      • not so..... (Score:3, Informative)

        by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 )
        spammers are sending mail from outside of California, so they're not subject to California jurisdiction;
        If you send advertising into California, are subject to California law. See Panavision v. Topen 141 F.3d 1316, 1320),. Burger King 471 U.S. at 475, and Calder v. Jones 465 U.S. 783.
  • To be clear:
    1> "human persons" must *not* send spam, "corporate persons" are exempt.
    2> To distinguish the "sender" between the "transmitter" of the message and the identity in the message's "From" data field, see <1>
    3> "Spam": see also "pork" [cagw.org].

  • Compare SPAM and telemarketing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @12:11PM (#12590398) Homepage
    National Do Not Call list law is passed. I put my phone number on the list. Literally within weeks, the number of telemarketing calls plummets from a flood to a tiny trickle. (The trickle being charities and political campaigns).

    CAN SPAM act is passed. Nothing happens.

    And most of the SPAM has every appearance of being generated in the U. S. You gotta think the CAN SPAM act is ineffective, perhaps by design.

  • ... and the older (trumped) California or Washington laws should be put into place.

    Spammers should be forced to provide absolute PROOF that you signed up (and verified) that you wanted marketing mail. No selling of email lists. Ever get spams that claim "You're getting this because you subscribed from 207.92.115.25 on $date" at all? they should be able to *prove* that *I* subscribed.

    CAN-SPAM has done nothing but open the floodgates for spammers. I have seen it in action, seeing as how I worked for a company that's now on the ROKSO list. I got to deal with it every single day.

    CAN-SPAM is a *total failure* and the only right thing to do is repeal it and send it back to the drawing board, allowing the states to come up with their own laws.
    • Spammers should be forced to provide absolute PROOF that you signed up (and verified) that you wanted marketing mail. No selling of email lists. Ever get spams that claim "You're getting this because you subscribed from 207.92.115.25 on $date" at all? they should be able to *prove* that *I* subscribed.

      Sadly, yes, I do get those messages. And a lot of the time, they still have $date or %date in them, signifying to me the spammer didn't read the instructions on his spam software correctly.

  • Some stats from a real live domain (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cluge ( 114877 ) on Friday May 20, 2005 @01:03PM (#12591094) Homepage
    Stats for May 15-May16 for inbound mail attempts to one small domain - somewhere on the Internet

    Mail rejected because account didn't exist (BRT)
    server1: 1,411,109 (May15 16:24 - May 16 18:05)
    server2: 1,423,574 (May15 20:32 - May16 18:09)
    server3: 1,309,968 (May15 10:14 - May16 18:13

    Mail rejected by RBL
    server1: 235,397 (May15 16:24 - May 16 18:05)
    server2: 287,573(May15 20:32 - May16 18:09)
    server3: 279,709(May15 10:14 - May16 18:13)

    Mail actually delivered to mail spool
    (i.e. before spam assassin checking):
    server1: 112,634 (May15 00:06 - May16 17:58)
    server2: 146,300 (May15 08:47 - May16 18:08)
    server3: 57,055 (May15 11:31 - May16 18:13)


    Totals and percentage of total mail processed over ~24 hours:
    Mail Delivered: 315,989 6%
    Mail Rejected RBL: 802,679 15%
    Mail Rejected BRT: 4,144,651 79%

    Judging by my own e-mail, and the amount of spam that gets through for spamscope to dispatch less than 6% of all e-mail being sent is legitimate.

    • I'm seeing the same pattern, but in my case there's a Russian spam gang that is sending out wave after wave of spam with my domain name in the from field. My mail server is dropping upwards of 100,000 bounced emails per day when I only have maybe 100 legitimate emails per day.

      In other words, 99.9% of the email at my server is dropped.

      The problem I see with the bounces is the recipient mail server should validate email addresses before forwarding email to another mail server, i.e. validate it at the gatew
  • The new act will be called U-CAN-SPAM, and it will be aimed at big corporate political donors.
  • It's gotten to the point where may street mailbox averages about 3 letters and about 30 pages of ads crammed into my little mailbox. The mailman is pretty good about keeping the letters on top, but then, how do I really know when I toss most of the stack into the adjacent trash bin?

    Before I try going to the post office and getting a glazed look from a postal grunt, does anyone know of a way to block all "Resident" mail, a complete opt-out of litter mills that don't even know my name?

    • Before I try going to the post office and getting a glazed look from a postal grunt, does anyone know of a way to block all "Resident" mail, a complete opt-out of litter mills that don't even know my name?

      The short answer is that it's not possible without a lot of effort on your part, perhaps more time than you spend filtering through the mail. The long answer is that you can cut junk mail to a trickle if you're willing to take the time. See Stopping Junk Postal Mail [shat.net] and ignore the Adwords on the right si

  • After reading the act originally, I always thought that by "can spam" they didn't meaning "can it", as in "knock it off", but rather "package it and put it on the shelf - it's safe, really!". As in "canned", like a commercial, or something. As noted earlier, CAN-SPAM didn't deter so much as it legalized it.

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