Over a month after it took effect, the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act – CAN-SPAM for short – has done little enough to change the spam picture, including only a fraction of unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail complying with the law when it hits your inbox.
That's the word from mail filtering software maker MX Logic, which says three percent of bulk commercial e-mail includes the required valid U.S. postal mail address and valid links opting out of future messages, both key requirements of CAN-SPAM. They based it on an analysis of ten thousand e-mail messages through this month.
Another spam filtering company, Brightmail, says the spam volume has grown continuously since CAN-SPAM took effect, with spam taking up as much as 60 percent of January e-mail compared to 58 percent in December.
But there is some good news, Brightmail chief technology officer Ken Schneider told CNET: while we're seeing more spam than ever, more direct e-mail marketers are beginning to comply with the new law more often, with Schneider telling the tech news Website many more are just trying to understand the new law and its effects.
MX Logic CTO Scott Chasin told CNET his company is seeing more spam coming from overseas. That company also said they're seeing a lot more spam attacks from zombies – hijacked personal computers.
Some of the rules are still being worked out or clarified even under CAN-SPAM enforcement. The Federal Trade Commission, for example, has proposed requiring those who send adult-related e-mail to include "Sexually-Explicit-Content" in messages, letting recipients filter and delete it before they see it. Schneider told CNET, however, that more such e-mailers are using the "ADLT" tag.
