The Center for Democracy & Technology has conducted a six month study of unsolicited email and they published some interesting conclusions. The results suggested that e-mail addresses posted on Web sites or in newsgroups attract the most spam. Although much of what they suggest seems quite obvious, we need more systematic studies to help us better understand and prevent spam.
Tips for Avoiding Spam:
Currently there is no foolproof way to prevent spam. Based on our research, they recommend that Internet users try the following methods to prevent spam
1. Disguise e-mail addresses posted in a public electronic place
2. Read carefully when filling out online forms requesting your e-mail address, and exercise your choice.
3. Use multiple e-mail addresses
4. Use a filter
5. Short e-mail addresses are easy to guess, and may receive more spam
In general, the number of e-mails received was based on where the address was posted or disclosed
They concluded that
1. E-mail addresses harvested from the public Web are frequently used by spammers
2. The amount of spam received by an address posted on the public Web is directly related to the amount of traffic that Web site receives
3. E-mail addresses harvested from the public Web appear to have a relatively short "shelf life."
4. Addresses posted in the headers of USENET messages can receive significant spam, though less than a posting on the public Web.
5. Obscuring an e-mail address is an effective way to avoid spam from harvesters on the Web or on USENET newsgroups
6. Sites that publish their policies and make choice available to users generally respected those policies
7. Domain name registration does not seem to be a major source of spam
8. Even when an e-mail address has not been posted or shared in any way, it is still possible to receive spam through various "attacks" on a mail server
Such server attacks systematically run through the alphabet or names to find you. Examples are:
aaa@somewhere.org
aab@somewhere.org
aac@somewhere.org
aad@somewhere.org
aae@somewhere.org
The study shows the effect of removing an email address from the public view and the sources of addresses used by spamers. It also suggests ways to disguise an email address that you may need to keep in the public view.
Laws in Progress
In a related story, New York State is trying to pass a law called the UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL REGULATION ACT. This bill is scheduled for hearing this week by the New York state Senate Consumer Protection Committee, seems to grant Internet service providers the right to "unilaterally block e-mails without providing notice to the senders, and then gives the ISPs complete immunity for their spam-blocking actions."
But the bill specifies that e-mails sent to recipients who have requested such communications from the sender, and those with whom the sender has a preexisting business relationship, are not to be considered spam. Under the pending bill, senders of an unsolicited sales pitch for insurance or other services, products or real estate would face a fine of "not more than five hundred dollars for each unsolicited electronic mail message transmitted to a recipient." The fine can be levied on anyone who sends unsolicited e-mail from a computer located within New York State or to an electronic mail address that the person "knows or has reason to know is held by a resident of the state."
10:56:18 PM 
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