Topic: Spam = Unwanted e-mail advertising
USA Today and my local newspaper Computer Business Pages have different stories on recent FTC (US Federal Trade Commission) efforts to protect consumers from inappropriate use of unsolicited e-mail, but not from the majority of this unwanted stuff. Spam is not illegal in the USA federal laws, although it is illegal in a dozen states, but efforts are being made to get rid of those laws. It is a continuing battle between interests that want more spam, and people who want less.
The newspaper stories that I link you to above, include information on those industry associations of spammers that are fighting to legalize much more spam into our e-mailboxes, and make it more difficult for us to filter it out. It is estimated that almost 1/2 of the e-mail today is spam, and the FTC has testified to Congress that the growth in fraudulent spam threatens to undermine consumer confidence in online commerce. Consider for example the 1-900 technology, which had great promise, but its abuse by unscrupulous marketers destroyed all public credibility.
This year the FTC ran a test called Spam Harvest in which they setup 250 e-mail accounts that were posted various kinds of places, 175 in all, in association with expressed interests, then they monitored how fast those accounts got spam and of what kinds. They found that it did not matter what you allegedly interested in, you likely to get spam across the spectrum of topics being advertised.
For example, e-mail addresses posted to sites for children, generated
- 38% of the spam was suitable for adults only
- 24% was work-at-home offers
- 10% was for hallucinogenic drugs
As a result of this FTC investigation, they sent warnings to 100 spammers informing them that their messages were fraudulent or deceptive under federal trade laws, while charges were brought against 4 spammers whose messages were designed to induce consumers to turn over personal financial information, thinking it was going to legitimate financial institutions, or other similar schmes.
- Chat rooms generate the most spam the fastest.
- News Groups and Web pages are close behind.
- 86% of e-mail accounts planted above were spammed.
- Free Personal Web pages, such as weblogs, that placed e-mail addresses in plain sight. Those e-mail addresses became spammed 50% of the time. There is a lesson there to webloggers.
- 27% of e-mail addresses posted to message board discussion groups got spammed.
- 9% of e-mail addresses on e-mail service directories were spammed.
Past posts on related information:
1:03:31 PM 
|
