A month after the Can-Spam law: Are you seeing less?

[Aaron73153]

Only a fraction of the unsolicited e-mail slipping into in-boxes complies with a federal antispam law, according to new research.

Only 3 percent of bulk commercial e-mail includes a valid U.S. postal mail address and a valid link to opt out of future messages, according to data released on Tuesday by MX Logic, a maker of mail-filtering software. Those requirements are part of the Can-Spam Act, short for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing, the nation's first federal spam law.

What's more, the amount of spam has continued to grow since the law went into effect at the beginning of the year. As much as 60 percent of the e-mail sent in January was spam, up from 58 percent in December, according to San Francisco-based Brightmail, one of the largest spam-filtering companies.

"We're seeing more spam than ever," said Ken Schneider, chief technology officer at Brightmail, which fields between 3 billion and 4 billion e-mail messages a day.

Yet direct e-mail marketers are beginning to comply more often with the law, and many others are still attempting to understand its effects, Schneider said. "It's a little bit early to see huge amounts of compliance, but we are seeing people start to comply," he said.

Some legal antispam rules are still being worked out. In recent weeks, the Federal Trade Commission, which is charged with enforcing the Can-Spam Act, proposed a rule that would require senders of adult-related e-mail to include the phrase "Sexually-Explicit-Content:" in messages. That way, recipients would be able to recognize and easily filter such e-mail before viewing it. Schneider said that more e-mailers are already including the tag "ADLT."

Scott Chasin, chief technology officer at MX Logic, said that the Denver company is seeing more e-mail that originates overseas--as much as 60 percent in January, up 1 percent from December. Spam attacks from "zombie machines," or hijacked PCs, are also on the rise, he said.

To conduct its survey, MX Logic analyzed 10,000 random pieces of commercial e-mail over a 30-day period ending in February to detect a valid postal address and an opt-out link. In the first week of January, it surveyed 1,000 messages similarly and found that only 1 percent of e-mail complied with the law.

Source: http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5156...l?tag=nefd_top

[stewiegriffin]

I actually am seeing less junk mail than ever at the moment. I haven't seen more than between 0-5 items since the new year. I doubt that this really has anything to do with the new laws though. Perhaps Microsoft are making more of an effort to filter the crap outta Hotmail...and it's working!?!!

I dunno really. Maybe it's all a big coincidence :p

[notbob]

i never got spam in my "real" accounts

if you keep your address secret (at least not plaster it all over the net) and have a decent provider that doesn't sell your info to every schmo, you have nothing to worry about

get a lot of spam? make a new account and quit whining

[wingnut2600]

I have an e-mail addy that I give to every Tom, Dick and Harry on the net, and I have received about a 90 percent decrease in spam recently... I don't know if it is MSN blocking spam better, or this act... who knows really? Hell, it could be that spammers have decided that I am no good for spamming.

[Killawat]

i send my stuff to my SBC account :;although i use AOL and Comcast:: SBC rox()rz at spam filtering

[collideous]

Seeing about the same. 70-80 messages that get caught by Spam Assassin, and about 5-10 that make it through the filters daily. Since many spammers use images in emails to track their mails I have HTML turned off.

[XtraNtnse]

only good spammer is a dead one

[Sockfulloflove]

I never got SPAM from the beginning, and haven't yet.

[method77]

i never got spam in my "real" accounts

if you keep your address secret (at least not plaster it all over the net) and have a decent provider that doesn't sell your info to every schmo, you have nothing to worry about

get a lot of spam? make a new account and quit whining

exactly. I have my isp account and give only to people I know. When I register somewhere, I use one of my other emails (hotmail, yahoo etc). No problem here. Althgough, I've used that penis enlargement ad and it works. My penis is 30% larger now. I'd advice others to use that.

[wingnut2600]

I've used that penis enlargement ad and it works. My penis is 30% larger now. I'd advice others to use that.

Man... there was a sarcastic comment I thought of at first, but then I thought of another... I will use both:

1) I have seen it and it is huge!

2) 30% larger of tiny is still tiny... you are still going to need a lot of motion in any ocean

[method77]

2) 30% larger of tiny is still tiny... you are still going to need a lot of motion in any ocean

it's a start. If I keep adding 30% every time I will finally have a respectable size