Although there are currently 20 state laws regulating the sending of unsolicited e-mail there is no overarching federal law. Several anti-spam bills have been introduced in Congress but they’ve gone nowhere as the nation’s attention veered dramatically toward improving national security in after the terrorist attacks of 9-11.

Although the consumer groups asking the FTC for tougher sanctions on junk e-mail didn’t say the issue was on the level of national security, they minced no words declaring the urgency of the matter.

Spam “is probably the first major consumer issue of the 21st century,” said Samuel Simon, chairman of the Telecommunication Research & Action Center, a non-profit Washington, D.C.-based organization. Spam now accounts for nearly one of every three e-mails sent, the groups said. “Spam e-mail really is the crack cocaine of marketing,” said Ken McEldowney, executive director, of Consumer Action. “It’s cheap, readily available; it’s irresistible to the addict that uses it over and over.”

[ Read more ]

Related items

• Software: Xyria:DNSd
• Software: Mail Snoop Pro
• News: Spam hits 36 percent of e-mail traffic (30 August 2002)
• News: Haiku'da been a spam filter (20 August 2002)
• News: Lock spam and viruses out of Sendmail (12 July 2002)
• News: How one spam leads to another (4 July 2002)
• News: Nigeria hoax spawns copycats (18 June 2002)
• News: The solution to spam - reverse filtering (12 June 2002)
• News: Anti-virus/anti-spam mail server setup using MailScanner (7 June 2002)
• News: Secure your network against viruses and spam (30 May 2002)
• News: Six arrested over 'Nigerian email' frauds (23 May 2002)
• News: Europe to let nations decide on financial spam (17 May 2002)
• Article: Spam Wars - Rise of the Spam (16 May 2002)
• News: Cutting spam at a cost (10 May 2002)
• News: MAPS sues its own anti-spam guru (9 May 2002)
• Article: Spam: The problems with junk e-mail (8 April 2002)
• Article: The six headed spam monster (1 April 2002)