Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Anti-spam bill feels empty

December 16, 2003 | Comments: (0)

Anti-spam bill feels empty

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Welcome to the season of giving. If you haven't realized it yet we're all getting a heaping, stinky pile of coal from our government this year. And it arrived today!

As expected, President "ultimate penalty" Bush signed into law the very first national anti-spam bill. In theory it sounds great, but it's not. Not for cosumers, at least. Egg nog with your government intervention, anyone?

For starters the bill now lets any business or marketer send out messages to anyone with an e-mail address. The catch is the marketers have to clearly identify themselves and honor consumer requests to be removed from the list. So to clarify, you'll be getting even more spam, legally, and NOW you have to actually request removal.

Let's say you do elect to opt out. Good for you. You've have just confirmed your email address is functional and it will now be sold to other spammers. Oh and that same marketer may not actually honor your request for removal.

Oh and let's not forget that only the most successful and feared spammers have already set up shop offshore- far away from the reach of the new federal laws. The same laws that supercede, stricter, perhaps even better state laws already in place.

Don't get me wrong, it is progress, but this law is not going to help you as a consumer or an email adminstrator. Instead you should continue to investigate anti-spam software solutions, which are vastly improved. Our Test Center group just recently reviewed five anti-spam products here or download the PDF.

Posted by Scott Tyler Shafer on December 16, 2003 03:34 PM

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