WE Can Stop the Spam! June 16, 2003

Author: Mr. Jack P. McHughPresented by: Nidhi Dalwadi

Jack P. McHugh

• He is a legislative analyst for Mackinac Center for Public Policy

• Project Manager for a web-driven legislative database.

SPAM

• Definition from Wikipedia states that:

Spamming is commonly defined as the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail - that is, email that was not

asked for (unsolicited) and received by multiple recipients (bulk).

• The articles says that: • spam is increasing by 50% every month.• It causes a loss in productivity by $10 billion every year. • About 37 states have some sort of anti-spam laws but few

have been successful in prosecutions.

“Do not Spam”

• The Federal Trade Commission at the time was putting together a “do not spam” list. Which is like the “do not call” list for telemarketers.

• It is though very expensive to do a state-wide “do not spam” list. • Individuals and businesses would have to pay to be on

there and also extra for continuous use• The problem lies in that spammers can always find a way

around the list and also be able to use the list to find e-mail addresses.

• Since the internet is young and fragile, the involvement of the government would slow down the growth.

Michigan States Proposal

• Michigan State House of Representatives was considering a legislation to require commercial e-mails to insert a “ADV” in the subject lines of emails• “ADV” stands for advertising• This will allow people to easily remove the

unwanted e-mails and keep the ones needed.

Is there a Solution?

• Another good question raised was that business networks and internet providers could easily do this for their users.• Since anti-spam programs are really expensive

and are not 100% guaranteed to stop the spam

• A good question to think about is what would be the governments’ role in enforcing this?

Solution!

• Without the state or the “do not spam” list, the author claims that we should do it ourselves!

• He means to forward a message to your friends and colleagues to demand spammers to honor the “ADV” code in the subject line.

• He feels that after time, the spammers will soon get the hint and start adding the “ADV” heading in the subject.

Example of Forwarding MessageSubject:

Join the anti-spam boycott!

Message:Effective immediately, I refuse to purchase any product or service

marketed through spam unless the first three characters of the message subject line are “ADV.” The “ADV” alerts me that this is

spam. It makes it easy for me to delete these messages if I choose, or for my ISP to delete them if I so request.

This does not apply to vendors with whom I have a pre-existing relationship. Spammers who include the ADV will get my

consideration if they are selling something I want.

Please join the boycott, and pass this message to your friends, urging them to really do it! WE can stop the spam, by taking the profits from

disrespectful spammers.

Are you willing?

• My concern is that, are we all willing to take our time out of our busy schedules to actually send this forwarding message to everyone we know and have them continue the cycle OR are you just going to click DELETE?

• I think eventually over time that if we did do what the author says, it will happen but our society likes instant gratification so it might not work.

QUESTIONS??