* What’s wrong with the proposed SPAM Act
Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has introduced the Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing Act (the SPAM Act), a bill with six key provisions designed to stop spamming, including fining spammers, imposing prison sentences for repeat offenders, creating a national “do not spam” registry and prohibiting directory harvest attacks, among other provisions.
According to Sen. Schumer’s Web site, “the V-Chip gave parents control of the TV. My SPAM Act will give them control over the computer.”
Therein lies a problem. According to multiple studies, the V-Chip (a chip that allows the blocking of TV programming with certain ratings) has been largely ineffective in stopping the problem for which it was designed. For example, a 2001 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that although 40% of American parents own a TV that contained a V-Chip at the time of the study, only one in six parents use it to block objectionable programming. A February 2003 Annenberg Public Policy Center study found that a majority of the families in its study do not use the V-Chip capabilities in their televisions.
Despite the good intentions with which the SPAM Act may have been introduced, I believe it has some serious flaws. First, it assumes that you as a home e-mail user are powerless to prevent the flood of spam filling your mailbox every time you check your e-mail. That assumption would be true if it wasn’t for the fact that about 10 minutes of online searching and $29.95 (or less) can buy you any of several very good client-side spam filters that are easy to install and very effective at stopping spam. Plus, leading ISPs now offer spam protection as a part of their standard Internet access offerings.
Second, the bill says that the database that contains the registry of e-mail addresses that don’t want to receive spam “will be protected by military-caliber encryption to ensure the protection of its contents.” If it’s encrypted, how will spammers be able to access it so they know who not to e-mail? And if they are given access to it, what will keep them from distributing its contents to others? Third, exactly how will the bill prevent a spammer in Belarus or Sri Lanka or Suriname from carrying out a dictionary harvest attack?
The SPAM Act is a perfect example of what many people call the “Do Something Disease,” a well-intentioned desire to do something – anything – in response to a serious problem. My concern with the Act is that, like the V-Chip, it will be a well-meaning effort that will cost huge sums and will result in very little positive impact in solving the problem it is designed to address. Let me know what you think about the SPAM Act or my take on it by dropping me a line at mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com
