JamSpam Community #5 The Non-Profit End-User Privacy and Antispam Advocacy community consists of organizations and individuals that claim to be acting in the best interests of end users who are fed up with invasions of their privacy, via spam or by other means. Examples of organizations that qualify are domestic and international lawmakers and law enforcers (e.g., states' attorneys general) as well as other non-profit organizations such as SpamCon, TRUSTe, and the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE).
State of the state: Although the intentions have been good, lack of unity within this community-- in particular the inability of lawmakers to engage technologists to understand whether the laws they're passing make any sense-- little if any progress has been made on this front. Some members of this community have attempted to engage in the sort of public education that can lead to better Internet habits that significantly curtail the yields that the most prolific spammers at the derive from their efforts.
Report card: Organizations like SpamCon, TRUSTe, and CAUCE are still voices in the Internet wilderness. Despite their efforts, as well as those of lawmakers, the spam problem has only worsened. This is clear evidence that this community will have to work more closely with the other communities if any of the measures it takes have hope of getting any traction.
Lawmaking in particular has been one of the most disastrous efforts of this community. For example, while states continue to pass antispam laws, no regard is being given to the senders who will ultimately have to keep detailed track of the resulting complex quilt of legislation. With no satisfactory common denominator among them, these laws are being passed despite the fact that no e-mail technology exists that: allows legitimate senders of bulk e-mail to keep track of the laws; keeps track of what state the recipient is in when they receive their mail (to answer questions of jurisdiction); and make adjustments to each individual piece of e-mail to make sure it doesn't run afoul of a state law.
With each new law, including those from the United States and other national governments, the quilt grows increasingly complex and impractical. Many parties have legitimately called into question the constitutionality of some laws while others have drawn attention to the failure of laws to adequately distinguish between welcome and unwelcome e-mail. This shines a spotlight on the thorny problem of coming up with a universally accepted definition for spam.
Finally, while the legislators who pass these laws have good intentions, little or no regard has been paid to the difficulty of enforcement. Not only is more and more spam coming from places beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. laws, but the return on investment from most lawsuits and prosecutions so far has been inversely proportional to the resources required by those undertakings. Laws can't keep up with the spammers.
Grade: C Given the limited resources that are typically available to non-profit organizations like CAUCE, TRUSTe, and SpamCon (and the resulting limited impact they've had on spam), they still have to be commended for taking the stand they have so far. True to form, government officials feel a need to do something before voters kick them out of office. Unfortunately, the when-you-have-a-nail-everything-looks-like-a-hammer action they've taken has been too hasty. Fortunately, some government officials such as Orson Swindle and Brian Husemann at the FTC understand that the problem has to be more thoroughly vetted before the rush to legislation is made.
Honorable mentions: TRUSTe executive director Fran Maier, FTC commissioner Orson Swindle, and SpamCon Foundation director Laura Atkins. Maier's name shows up in most inter-community efforts to combat spam. Maier is trying to extend the valued TRUSTe imprimatur's utility from the privacy arena to the spam arena. To be effective, the program will require broader acceptance among the rest of the communities, a feat which has so far not been achieved. Maier has also volunteered to help frame JamSpam's constitution, is involved in a cross-community effort between TRUSTe, the ePrivacy Group, and the E-mail Service Providers' Coalition, and has offered TRUSTe's resources to IronPort's Bonded Sender initiative.
FTC's Swindle proved that some government officials are willing to take a deep breath before acting. Swindle and his staff organized a three-day marathon forum in Washington, D.C. to consider the input of virtually everyone impacted by spam, and the measures being taken to combat it. The forum even included a panel of international lawmakers.
Under Atkins leadership, SpamCon recently created a legal defense fund that ultimately protects the rights of blacklist operators and the ISPs that subscribe to them. While blacklists have arguably created as many problems as they have solved (perhaps more), they may ultimately serve an important role if the different communities arrive at a more holistic and integrated solution. Even if they don't, natural selection rather than court-set precedent should determine their extinction. SpamCon's decision was a bold but necessary choice to avoid prematurely setting a legal predisposition against all blacklists before their ultimate value to a more concerted antispam effort has been determined.
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