For many, one of the most irritating aspects of operating a computer is dealing with spam.
Unsolicited e-mails can be annoying and are sometimes easily recognized by bold claims on the subject line, like “Lose weight fast!” or “Be a bigger man.”
To help relieve their customers from the inconvenience of spam, four major Internet Service Providers, or ISPs, have jointly filed six lawsuits against hundreds of spammers.
Microsoft Corp., America Online Inc., Earthlink Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. claim that the spammers have violated “can spam” laws by sending millions of unwanted e-mails to their customers.
Enacted in December 2003, Congress passed the CAN Spam Act to pacify the growing amount of unsolicited e-mails on the Internet.
According to Congress’s findings, spam accounts for more than half of commercial electronic mail.
John Mozena, co-founder and vice president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, or CAUCE, said this is not the first time ISPs have sued spammers.
“ISPs are basially undefeated in spam lawsuits,” Mozena said. “We’re happy to see the lawsuit and see people be held accountable for their actions.”
Mozena also said despite the lawsuit and the CAN Spam Act, he does not think spammers will slow down because there are so many of them.
“Although the CAN Spam Act increased the probability of spammers ending up in court, their odds of being sued are about the same as being struck by lightning,” Mozena said.
Mozena said he thinks that if spam laws were modeled after the Telephone Consumer Protection Act –which penalized people who sent out junk faxes $500 per fax — the levels of spam would decrease rapidly.
“If spammers were penalized $500 per spam, they would have no monetary incentive to continue spamming,” he said.
Craig Freeman, an assistant professor in media law, agrees that the lawsuit will probably not slow down spammers because they are good at hiding.
“By the time the spammers are found, they’ve already changed their operation and moved along,” Freeman said. “They are good at hiding their money and can be hard to catch.”
Freeman said ISPs could inhibit spamming by employing an e-mail “fingerprinting” system that could block spammers from sending messages by using the identity of others.