The apparent consensus coming out of last week's Federal Trade Commission anti-spam conference is this: Current state anti-spam laws don't work as well as they were supposed to work, a pair of new legislative proposals don't go far enough, and nothing short of a national opt-in law that lets private users sue the spammers will really do even a small enough round of the job that has to be done to bring the spam back down to a small puddle.
That's how PC World seemed to call it after the three-day conference that ended May 2. The legislative proposal with the most support at the conference, the magazine said, seemed to be U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer's (D-New York) proposal to create a national do-not-e-mail list, similar to the national do-not-call registry due to come fully online this summer.
The magazine said a proposal by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California), calling for a bounty paid to those reporting spammers and to require spam labeled as "ADV," won't even begin to erase the problem, if only because spammers ignore labeling laws and legitimate e-mail markets will find their own "ADV" mails blocked.
David Kramer, of the law firm Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati, told PC World nothing less than mandatory opt-in and allowing spam recipients to sue the spammers would begin to cut it. "Where there is the reward to the consumer for serving the public interest by going out and taking action, if only for $1500, in his or her own name ... you will see individuals going to court and making those claims," he said.
On the other hand, there were also those who said a national do-not-spam list wouldn't be easy to run and wouldn't really cut back on the spam coming from outside the United States. "If I'm a spammer in Tajikistan," said Global Internet Project chairman John Patrick, who told PC World he favors letting government stay out of it until all technological solutions are formulated and tried, "why do I care about any state or (U.S.) federal law? We're really kidding ourselves here if we think we can go to small claims court to sue the spammer in Tajikistan."
And Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail counsel Ray Everett-Church told the magazine bounties like the one in the Lofgren proposal aren't needed because spam recipients already report spam in bulk to the FTC and their Internet service providers. "The problem isn't finding the spammers," Everett-Church said. "It's getting law enforcement to act. It's a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist."
