The Can Spam Act is only partly in effect

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2004 13:17:55 -0800
From: Larry Tesler <tesler () pobox com>
Subject: The Can Spam Act is only partly in effect
X-Sender: larry () nomodes com (Unverified)
To: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>

Dave,

Skepticism about the effectiveness of The Can Spam Act is understandable. 
But it is important to recognize that the provisions of the Act did not all 
take full effect on January 1. Here are excerpts from the text of the Act 
as reproduced at http://www.spamlaws.com/.

(1) "[By October 2004] the [Federal Trade] Commission shall transmit to the 
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House of 
Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, a report, that sets forth 
a system for rewarding those who supply information about violations of 
this Act, including procedures for the Commission to grant a reward of not 
less than 20 percent of the total civil penalty collected for a violation 
of this Act to the first person that identifies the person in violation of 
this Act and supplies information that leads to the successful collection 
of a civil penalty by the Commission."

IMHO, enterprising technologists and attorneys are likely to join forces to 
form bounty-hunting teams that identify and turn in big-time spammers.

(2) The FTC has 12 months to issue regulations defining "the purpose of an 
electronic mail message" and another 6 months after that to recommend a 
system for legitimate commercial mailers (not using falsified addresses, 
etc.) to identify their commercial mail (e.g., "ADV:").

(3) It will be at least 9 months before the Do-Not-Email Registry will be 
established.

IMHO, the Registry may cause more spam to be generated. But it may help in 
gaining convictions.

(4) Within 2 years, the FTC "shall submit a report to the Congress that 
provides a detailed analysis of the effectiveness and enforcement of the 
provisions of this Act and the need (if any) for the Congress to modify 
such provisions."

The Act also recognizes that "the problems associated with the rapid growth 
and abuse of unsolicited commercial electronic mail cannot be solved by 
Federal legislation alone. The development and adoption of technological 
approaches and the pursuit of cooperative efforts with other countries will 
be necessary as well."

The Can Spam act has not canned spam. But it may turn out to be one 
important weapon in the fight.

Larry

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