AOL is After Email Spammers
AOL have announced a round of five lawsuits against notorious email spammers. The suits seek at least $10 million in civil damages and court orders to halt the junk-mail barrage. AOL has also sent out over 100 cease-and-desist letters to alleged spammers. In addition, on April 11, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) reintroduced the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography & Marketing) Act. The bill mandates stiff financial penalties and heavy jail time for anyone who spams using invalid or fake e-mail addresses. According to CEO Enrique Salem of BrightMail, one of the largest anti-spam service providers, in January, 2003, 4 out of every 10 messages traveling over the Internet were probably Spam. Salem says by March, the percentage had hit 45%. Using that math, with spam increasing at 2% per month, by yearend 63% of all messages on the Net will be spam. Add this up, and it's clear that soon spam will represent more than 90% of all traffic on the Net. Plus, the mere cost of processing it will dwarf the cost of moving valid e-mail. These costs will come in extra equipment required to handle the onslaught, extra employee hours to manage it, and extra efforts by lawyers to sue known spammers. According to messaging consultancy Ferris Research, spam will cost U.S. corporations $10 billion in 2003. [Full story: Anti-Spammers Get Serious - Business Week]
Related Posts: