| SPAM. How I hate it. And I don’t mean the luncheon meat. I rather like a slice or two in a sandwich, or fried for breakfast. No, what I hate is the unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE), also defined as unsolicited commercial email (UCE) that deluges our e-mail boxes every day. It is not that I can’t hit the “delete” key. It is the mess that SPAMMERS are making for those of us who wish to use the internet for business and personal reasons. The problem, already bad, is getting dramatically worse.
Be careful. Not all “UBE” or “UCE” is technically spam. The same rule for determining whether a fax is a “Junk Fax” in general also applies to e-mail. If you have an existing or prior personal or business relationship with the company or individual, it is not spam unless you have requested removal from their email list.
SPAM e-mail is not free, despite the claims of the thieves who send it. Yes. That is correct. Thieves. SPAMMERS are causing a huge loss of productivity, resources and time. Don’t take my word for it. Go to www.brightlight.com/cgi-bin/spamulator.cgi and run the numbers yourself. And they (the spammers) are not paying the cost, you are. In the very same way that “junk faxing” costs the recipient, “junk e-mailing” likewise costs the recipient directly and indirectly.
More than two years ago, AOL estimated that more than 30 percent of ALL the e-mail that system handled was unsolicited and unwanted. Most of it is get rich quick scams or pornography. Legitimate businesses do NOT use SPAM as a marketing tool. Not for long, in any case. Some industry experts estimate that 20 to 30 percent of your internet bill is now being spent to compensate for the problems created by SPAMMERS.
A current Associated Press report just out reports the problem experienced by Verizon: “Verizon clears SPAM from system “ — Associated Press, Dec. 20, 2000 by Patrick Casey “NEW YORK — Verizon Communications said Wednesday that its system is back in full operation after being slowed by a wave of millions of junk messages that delayed e-mail for as many as 200,000 of its Internet customers on the East Coast.
“Each time it was tens of millions of messages. Our mail servers could not handle it,” Verizon spokesman Larry Plumb said from Arlington, Va.
Plumb said the first spam attack occurred Nov. 19, with additional attacks on Nov. 20 and Dec. 5. “We didn’t lose any messages but some were severely delayed,” Plumb said. “Some message were delayed a week or more.”
A bit more than two years ago, Compuserve’s e-mail service was knocked out for two weeks because of SPAMMERS overloading their servers. Compuserve literally spent millions of dollars to upgrade their servers, their service, and to provide redundancy. There have been numerous incidents between these two incidents. The examples of abuse are legion, yet it seems little is being done.
There is a patchwork quilt of state laws that have been enacted in the past three years, with the Washington State law now being put through the legal wringer after a clueless judge in Seattle overturned the law as “unconstitutional.” It is on appeal. The problem is the very nature of the internet, and the criminal mentality of those who abuse systems all around the world.
What can you do about it? That is subject of a following article, but right now the most important thing you can do is complain to your elected officials. Early and often. Especially the Federal officials. What we need is a law with teeth, that is enforceable, and that carries severe penalties for the SPAMMERS and for ISP’s who aid them, or ISP’s who do not take measures to prevent their systems from being hijacked or abused. And it needs to be a federal law that then becomes applicable throughout the US and it’s territories.
The position of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers (WAISP), of which I am President, is simple. The provisions of the anti-Junk Fax laws should apply to junk e-mail, for precisely the same reasons. The penalties for violation of both should be increased significantly. Both constitute theft of service, cost shifting and in a very real way, invasion of privacy. The identical cost shifting and theft of service elements exist in each case, and the abuse of fax machines, while more dramatic than e-mail or internet abuse, is actually less costly than the abuse of the internet. Far more people have internet access than do people or businesses who have faxes.
Remember, SPAMMERS are committing fraud and breach of contract when they spam from, or relay through third-party ISP’s. All reputable ISP’s have Acceptable Use Policies that prohibit the use of their services for spamming and other illegal activity. The “professional” spammers forge headers and hijack open relays to disguise the source of the spam, and frequently use stolen accounts to insert their spew. That is not the conduct of law abiding or reputable people or companies.
Pay attention now. I am going to “shout” for emphasis. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH BUSINESSES THAT USE SPAM TO MARKET THEIR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES, and DO NOT REPLY TO SPAMMERS REQUESTING “REMOVAL” FROM SPAM LISTS. By not doing business with them, you remove the incentive to spam. If you respond to SPAMMERS to ‘remove’ you from their lists, you simply confirm that yours is a valid address, and they sell it to other SPAMMERS.
Our elected representatives have dithered long enough, and allowed the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and their cohorts to stonewall affective legislation for too long. If the internet is not going to be crippled the same way that CB Radio was in the 70’s, congress must act, and act now.
(Editor’s Note: Jim Kendall is the owner of Telebyte NW, and a board member of the Washington Association of Internet Service Providers. He may be reached at (360) 613–5220.) | 
