Experts warn spam could ruin e-mail
Spam must be stopped, according to lawmakers and Internet experts, but few agreed how to curb the unwanted junk e-mail they say threatens to overwhelm the Internet's most popular application.
On the first day of the Federal Trade Commission's "spam summit," participants on Wednesday could not even agree on what type of online marketing was unacceptable enough to earn the pejorative tag.
Marketers said that deceptive messages with misleading subject lines like "Re: your account" were to blame, squeezing out more reputable operators who only send messages to consumers who want to hear from them.
Internet providers and consumer advocates said it was the sheer number of messages, not their content, that posed the biggest threat.
"The deception does not mitigate the problem of bulk," said Laura Atkins, president of the SpamCon foundation, an anti-spam group...more [CNN]
The egg that killed the Goose is what Spam is. The problem is simple. The solution is also simple. Spam is any email that I did not request, or sign up to receive. It is email that comes from list sold to second parties, or 'partners.'
Solutions: All email that is commercial must have a single point of origin. That point of origin must be specified. Anyone wanting to send commercial email must first send an email requesting validation. There must be a national opt-out list. All Commercial email must have a relevant subject, with "ADV:" at the start of the subject. Hotmail, Yahoo, and similar services must gain some validation of ID before granting an account.
Violations should be severe. Any source domain could be blocked, and any violations of the Opt-Out list must be in the range of $5000 per email. Adult email sent to a child's account must have even more severe punishment in the range of $20,000 per email, per violation. Use of misleading subjects, or hiding the source of the email should result in a fine of $2000 per email, per violation. Repeat offenders must be banned from the use of Internet access for a period of 1-5 years. Violation of that ban could result in a permanent ban. Foreign countries must be held accountable. If a Country is a repeat offender then their service may be blocked. The only way to deal with this plague is to declare total war on it.
Another less attractive solution is to simply ban all commercial email, unless a specific confirmation is gained. That confirmation would be required by each source. Violation would be severe and painful. This is war, and in war you have to have clear specific goals. In this case getting rid of all the wasted bandwidth is as good a goal as any. In the past 4 weeks I have received at least 5 emails a day for 'Gain-Pro.' They always have a false subject. They all have bogus sources. There should be a way for me to punish these jerks. Nothing less then the extermination of Spam will be an acceptable result, screw the legitimate marketers...mj
1:09:31 PM 
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