Internet and law enforcement observers expect Attorney General John Ashcroft to announce a major crackdown on cybercrime – especially against spammers and online scammers – at an August 26 news conference, on the heels of a series of arrests involving spammers.
Ashcroft and the Justice Department are expected to discuss arrests, subpoenas, and property seizures of suspected spammers and cyberscammers, according to several published reports citing law enforcement and Internet industry sources.
But the Direct Marketing Association said August 25 that some of the arrests were made in a sweep called Operation Slam Spam, which the DMA said is a yearlong probe involving their cooperation with the FBI. The DMA said they helped start Operation Slam Spam last summer “because [we] believed [we] could help reduce spam and thereby help engender greater trust and comfort in legitimate commercial e-mail communications.
“[We believe] that reducing spam requires a multi-pronged approach, including industry self-regulation, technology, and laws like the CAN-SPAM Act,” the DMA continued, “and believes that law enforcement and criminal prosecutions will be a critical deterrent to spammers.”
The U.S. enacted CAN-SPAM in January, but critics of the law – before and since its enactment – have said it does nothing but facilitate an increase in the spam volume because it lacks an opt-in provision and relies, instead, on the opt-out mode, which still allows spammers – even if they mark their messages appropriately as the new law mandates – to send their materials a first time at least, and often enough more than once.
Spam-fighting group Spamhaus denounced CAN-SPAM the day it took effect as the U.S. “legalizing spam rather than banning it,” calling the law, derisively, the YOU-CAN-SPAM Act.
Some reports indicated more than half the cases anticipating the to-be-announced crackdown concentrate on the cyberscammers – especially the phishers, those who use e-mails and Web pages made to resemble legitimate companies but are aimed at tricking viewers into giving up sensitive personal financial information.
Other cases, the reports said, will include traditional spam such as porn, fake diets, fake body or organ enhancement drugs, and even the spam which sends the viruses that have turned hundreds of thousands of computers into zombies controlled by hackers and hacking spammers.
Word of the pending Ashcroft press conference and expected cybercrime crackdown came on the same day the Federal Trade Commission announced a court order against two New York men running a Long Island-based Internet company the FTC said took millions by promising consumer rebates that were never paid.
Cyberrebate.com masterminds Joel Granik and Joseph Lichter sold products marked up to ten times their retail value and failed to pay promised 100 percent rebates, the FTC said. Granik and Lichter have now been banned permanently from offering “certain types of rebates in connection with the sale of any product,” the FTC continued, and were ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
“Companies can’t use rebates to ‘bait’ consumers with the promise of cash back and then not live up to their end of the bargain,” said FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection acting director Lydia Parnes. “Consumers who comply with the requirements of a rebate deserve prompt payment in full. By banning these two defendants from ever running a similar business, we’re protecting consumers – and reminding companies to honor their rebate promises.”
