• by Masha Geller , April 30, 2003

Federal Trade Commission Chairman Timothy J. Muris called it a historic gathering. On the first day of the FCT Spam Forum in Washington, DC yesterday, a few hundred people patiently waited in the metal detector line to gain entry into the public forum, which brought together consumers, legislators, ISPs, email marketers and many others to talk about the beast that is threatening to swallow the email medium.

In his opening remarks, Muris said that unfortunately, there seems to be more talk than action on the spam issue today and that the event would go a long way to shedding some light on the problem. According to Muris, the mistake most people make is compare spam to telemarketing, which does not contain nearly as much deception (misleading subject lines, forged header information, etc.) or adult content, which makes it markedly different from any other form of communication, as well as making it a very immediate problem. There are three components to the solution: law enforcement, education and research, he said.

And it was law enforcement on the federal level that seemed to dominate almost every discussion during the day. In the past few days, several bills were introduced in Washington, including the Burns/Wyden CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, which drew some sharp criticism from several forum participants.

All government officials present at the forum agreed that it's going to take "strong legislative action" to curb spam, which is "killing the very tool that we use everyday not only in business, but in our personal lives," as Senator Conrad Burns (R - MT) put it. The bill he authored with Senator Ron Wyden (D - OR) calls for requiring an opt-out policy on all commercial email, as well as severe fines for spammers, among other things, such as "ADV" tags on all commercial email.

Spam is "more than a nuisance, it's an economic problem," Sen. Wyden said, calling for a coordinated anti-spam effort, which would include a "tough national law," and better coordination with technology providers to create solutions to curb spam.

Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's (D-CA) also plans to introduce her own initiative to Congress next week, titled "Restrict and Eliminate Delivery of Unsolicited Commercial Email (REDUCE) Spam" Act. The legislation, if approved, would require bulk unsolicited commercial email to include in its subject line the tag "ADV:", and bulk adult spam as "ADV:ADLT," establish criminal penalties for fraudulent spam and even create a "strong incentive for people to report violations by establishing a bounty for information that leads to the successful collection of civil fines."

In a formal open letter distributed at the forum, however, a relatively broad coalition of privacy, anti-spamming and consumer groups argues that anti-spam measures currently being considered by Congress, specifically the Burns/Wyden CAN-SPAM Act, are too weak because they don't actually prohibit spamming (merely require an opt-out), and don't allow consumers to sue spammers.

"There are just too many spammers out there to leave enforcement to government agencies," said Jason Catlett, President of Junkbusters Corp. "People who are spammed should to be able to sue in small claims court, just as they can sue junk faxers and telemarketers who call at 7a.m."

Some members of the opening panel discussion of the day agreed. Led by FTC's Association Direction of the Division of Marketing Practices Eileen Harrington, panelists from Microsoft, SpamCop, AOL and several others outlined just how deep the problem is (spam volume is growing exponentially and is slated to overtake the volume of "normal" email this summer, even though major ISPs are blocking millions, if not billions of spam emails daily.) Most agreed that the Burns/Wyden Bill is "a good start," and can help with establishing best practices for the industry, but what's really needed is a way to "differentiate legitimate [email marketers] from the unwashed masses," as Microsoft's Corporate VP of Identity, Brian Arbogast, said.

The Honorable Christine O. Gregoire, Attorney General, State of Washington, said the Bill is not tough enough and actually preempts some of the already existing state laws. The "defenses have too many loopholes," she said, adding that the Bill is a good start but has "a long way to go."

Some of the solutions suggested by the panel were a registry of legitimate emailers (akin to the proposal Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced earlier this week, which draws on FTC's already existing "do-not-call" list for telemarketers), better labeling, and even stronger criminal penalties for spammers, as Joe Barrett, Senior VP of Systems Operations at AOL, suggested. "We need a law with some teeth," he said.

The Direct Marketing Association also chimed in on the spam issue. The organization released a statement yesterday, underlining its position against the practice of automatic algorithmic email addressing, also known as dictionary attacks, that spammers use in mass untargeted marketing campaigns or in order to ascertain live addresses. In addition, The DMA announced that commercial messages should not be sent when email addresses have been captured surreptitiously - a practice often called harvesting. Both practices could ultimately undercut email as a valuable business communications tool, the DMA said, calling on bolstered law enforcement of current consumer anti-fraud laws as well as federal legislation, among other things to combat unscrupulous spam.

The Forum continues through Friday.