As antispam law hits, no holiday from junk e-mail

SAN FRANCISCO -- The first federal antispam law has been in effect two days. Yet, computer in boxes are still cluttered with tacky advertisements and unwanted solicitations.

Spam-fighting software companies said yesterday that the volume of e-mail they detect has diminished since the Can Spam Act of 2003 took effect Thursday. But a portion of the decrease is probably a result of the New Year's holiday (even spammers take vacations) and the end of the Christmas shopping season. Billions of junk e-mail messages still pour in each day.

E-mail sent yesterday made one thing clear: Many marketers haven't yet changed their tactics to comply with the law.

One reason for the new law's lack of impact is that although it sets a standard for how businesses can use e-mail to seek customers, it is only the first step of what is shaping up as a long fight against the flood of spam that threatens to overwhelm the Internet. Consumer advocates warned people not to expect too much from the law in the short term.

"It's not going to be a panacea or silver bullet that ends spam as we know it," said John Breyault, a research associate for the Telecommunications Research & Action Center, a Washington consumer group.

The likely next step is legal action against the most egregious spammers for violations of the new law -- as soon as next week, if the senators who wrote the law have their way. Federal officials want to make an example of kingpin spammers. That tactic has not slowed the rise of spam in the past.

Meanwhile, the choices facing consumers seeking to stop unsolicited e-mail are as bewildering as they were before the new law. The most immediate question: to unsubscribe or not to unsubscribe.

The federal law says a business can send commercial e-mail to consumers until they explicitly ask to stop receiving the messages. That creates a dilemma for recipients. Although many reputable companies honor such requests, trying to unsubscribe from many spammers' mailing lists can do more harm than good. At best, it's a waste of time because it usually doesn't work. At worst, it will confirm your e-mail address to spammers who try millions of random addresses in hopes of finding a potential customer.

Until those unsubscribe links become more reliable, it's safer to hit delete. Breyault, of the telecommunications research group, said some consumers have reported receiving 10 times as much spam after trying to unsubscribe.

"All you're doing is confirming that you're a live one," he said. He recommended that consumers use spam-blocking software and take better care of their primary e-mail addresses -- don't post it on Internet message boards or give it to online services without first scrutinizing their privacy policies.

In a letter sent last month, the senators who wrote the Can Spam Act, Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana and Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, urged Federal Trade Commission chairman Timothy J. Muris to prepare federal charges against high-volume spammers. They encouraged Muris to file lawsuits within the first week of the new year.

Brian Huseman, a staff attorney for the FTC, said the commission has brought nearly 60 antispam cases under older laws. "We plan on using the new law-enforcement tools and the Can Spam Act to bring even more," he said, but would not specify when.

The new law was born of the frustration of consumers, businesses, and Internet service providers, as spam went from a nuisance to a nightmare. In 2003, spam e-mail messages surpassed legitimate messages for the first time, rising to 56 percent from 40 percent of all e-mail, according to Brightmail Inc., a maker of spam-blocking software. Brightmail predicted that spam would reach 65 percent of all e-mail traffic this year.

Two e-mail security companies said they had detected a drop in the volume of spam since the law took effect. MessageLabs said it blocked 22 percent fewer junk e-mail messages by noon Eastern time yesterday than during the comparable period Wednesday. And Commtouch Software said the number of spam outbreaks, or blasts of bulk e-mail, fell by 19 percent on Jan. 1 from the day before.

But a Commtouch official said the decline was typical for a holiday. Very few spammers the company tracked had followed the new e-mail rules. The law bans fraudulent return e-mail addresses and misleading subject lines, and requires marketers to include their postal address, to clearly label advertising and sexually explicit messages, and to include a mechanism for recipients to remove themselves from the mailing list.

Chris Gaither can be reached at gaither@globe.com.