To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://www.silicon.com/research/specialreports/thespamreport/0,39025001,39119962,00.htm

Leader: Spam's inglorious tenth year
FTC marks the occasion with toothless display of pointless proportions...

By silicon.com

Published: Wednesday 14 April 2004

Spammers are being told they will have to mark all pornographic spam email with the words "Sexually-Explicit:" in the subject line in order to make it easier for people to filter out the obscene emails if they don't want to see it.

Yeah, that'll work.

This incredulous piece of news arrived on the day we marked the tenth anniversary of spam and served to remind ourselves that in that decade governments and lawmakers have made absolutely no strides in learning how to combat it.

In fact, the more we read about such measures the more we wonder whether they even realise who or what they are fighting. Do they really believe the spammers are sitting there thinking 'oh dear, it seems we may have been fooling people into accidentally opening these emails with our rather vague subject lines'? That's the whole point.

Similarly they know that sending such emails is illegal - so why would a different law be of any more concern than the previous one? Also the idea that we could filter the more vile spam and never see it suggests we still may want to see the rest of the flood of spam in our inbox which isn't pornographic.

Chances of spammers adhering to these rules? Zero. Marks out of 10 for the FTC? Zero.

Most spammers don't stop sending unsolicited email when threatened with legal action (if caught) and ordered to do so, so it seems highly unlikely they will assist in the filtering of it now.

And lest we forget the role 'the law' (in its broadest sense) had in the spam plague, it's worth reiterating the fact that it was lawyers who first opened Pandora's box and introduced unsolicited email to the internet.

We've said it once, twice, probably a dozen times, but we'll say it again. It will be technology which wins this battle - not legislators who appear to still have their heads in the clouds.