FTC Says List Will Not Reduce Spam
US top consumer protection agency has delivered a plan to Congress on how to create a national "do-not-spam" list, but said it was skeptical that such a list would reduce the amount of spam clogging e-mail in-boxes.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in its report said that without a way to authenticate the origin of e-mail addresses, a no-spam list "would fail to reduce the burden of spam and may even increase the amount of spam received by consumers."
"I wouldn't put my e-mail address on such a registry and I wouldn't advise consumers to either," FTC Chairman Timothy Muris said during a telephone conference call. "Consumers will be spammed if we do a registry and spammed if we do not."
Despite the commission's opinion, the six-month-old national "Can-Spam" law requires the FTC to lay out a procedure for how to create the e-mail registry.
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who pressed to have the list included in the Can-Spam Act, based the idea on the successful national do-not-call list that was adopted in June 2003. People who do not want to be bothered by telemarketing calls can add their telephone numbers to the list, which the FTC forces telemarketers to buy and obey.
"We are very disappointed that the FTC is refusing to move forward on the... registry," Schumer said in a written statement. "The registry is not the perfect solution but it is the best solution we have to the growing problem of spam and we will pursue congressional alternatives in light of the FTC's adamancy."
Opponents of the no-spam registry said it would be impossible to get spammers to respect such a list because they often hide behind fraudulent e-mail addresses and are located all over the world.
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) who co-sponsored the Can-Spam Act, said in an interview that he agreed with the FTC's assessment. "[If] we can't authenticate the sender we endanger people with more spam rather than less," he said.
Louis Mastria, a spokesman for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), said that only legitimate marketers would respect the list, not the legions of anonymous spammers who send out millions of get-rich-quick schemes and sex enhancement aides every day.
"We feel that this would be a huge impediment to doing business without doing anything to stop spam. You put up a roadblock to e-commerce, but you do nothing to stop spam," Mastria said.
The nation's second-largest Internet service provider, Atlanta-based Earthlink Inc., provides its customers with anti-spam tools and is working with other companies to develop e-mail authentication technology, said spokeswoman Carla Shaw.
Earthlink does not support creating a do-not-spam list, said Dave Baker, the company's vice president of law and public policy.
Supporters of the registry said that the list would not eliminate spam but would help law enforcement authorities crack down on spam law violators.
"Anti-spam laws to this point have been sentiment laws. They say you shouldn't spam, we don't like spam, spam is bad, what they haven't done is solve the problems that prosecutors face. The great thing about the registry is that it starts to solve many of the problems that prosecutors face," said Matthew Prince, chief executive of Chicago-based Unspam, one of 13 companies that submitted recommendations to the FTC about how to create a do-not-spam registry.
The FTC said that more enforcement of the Can-Spam act and stronger attempts by Internet service providers to filter incoming e-mail "may even make a registry unnecessary."
The commission also said that the companies that run the global e-mail infrastructure should come up with a better way to authenticate the origin of e-mail messages.
Muris said the FTC would convene an authentication "summit" this fall.
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