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Posted
on 15-Sep-02 08:41 PM
In Other Words :Junk E-Mail
The scourge of spam has reached near-intolerable levels. This year 7.3 billion e-mail messages will be sent each day. Opponents of spam are using federal and state law to fight back becuse Spam is popular with direct marketers for obvious reasons. Computer time is cheap, and CD's containing millions of e-mail addresses sell online for about $150.
For recipients, however, spam is far from free. Businesses report that unwanted e-mail is significantly reducing worker productivity and overloading computer-system capacity.
Individuals are spending countless hours sifting through their e-mail queues to weed out spam. Since this is an imperfect science, e-mail users often lose important, non-junk e-mail in the process.
This month the Telecommunications Research and Action Center and other consumer groups petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit e-mail that disguises its commercial intent by using a phony subject line or by misrepresenting the sender. These proposed rules fall squarely within the FTC's mandate and deserve prompt action. Yet spam has some powerful backers. Trade associations have so far succeeded in blocking anti-spam bills in Congress. Civil liberties groups have come to the defense of spam on free-speech grounds. Spam is commercial speech. The regulations adopted and those now pending at the FTC, fall well within what is constitutionally permissible.
Spam will increase more than fivefold over the next four years. It could so swamp e-mail systems that e-mail will become virtually unusable. By requiring bulk e-mailers to label spam honestly, and by making it easy for recipients to filter it or choose not to receive it, the government can go a long way toward preserving e-mail for more important uses.
The New York Times
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