The purpose of this article is to help website owners, writers, internet marketers to protect themselves from being accused of spamming.

Anyone that has a website, webpage or electronic newsletter and communicates using email, publishes articles or promotes their URL can be accused of being a spammer.

First, knowledge is the first step to prevention. Unfortunately, to date there is no official or agreed upon definition of what constitutes spam.

The internet today is the result of the collaborative efforts of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. These are the guys that write the guidelines (RFC) and standards to which everyone adheres to make the internet function. They wrote the Netiquette Guidelines (RFC1855). For more info, visit http://www.ietf.org/

The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) according to their website (http://www.cauce.org) was created by netizens to advocate for a legislative solution to the problem of UCE (a/k/a “spam”). Unfortunately, they do not specifically define spam other than provide a list of characteristics of email sent by unreputable marketers promoting pyramid schemes, chain letters, etc.

>From my research, I have concluded that spam has been defined as junk email, unsolicited bulk email (UBE), unsolicited commercial email (UCE), unrequested email and more.

Here is a quick check list of things that would possibly be considered spam:

=>Sending advertisements, solicitations, or any type of mailing that was not requested (even if only sent to a single person)

=>Posting advertisements for your web site in news groups, bulletin boards, or any other public medium where such posts are not appropriate

=>Having other people do either of the above.

Most Internet Service Providers and web hosting companies are anti-spam. They have to be because of the severe consequences of being labeled tolerant of spam, and, particularly being listed on the Realtime Blackhole List maintained by Mail Abuse Prevention System LLC (MAPS).

According to the MAPS website at http://mail-abuse.org/, they are a not-for-profit California organization whose mission is to defend the Internet’s e-mail system from abuse by spammers. Their principal means of accomplishing this mission is by educating and encouraging ISP’s to enforce strong terms and conditions prohibiting their customers from engaging in abusive e-mail practices.

ISPs that share MAPS concerns about the harm caused by spam often request access to MAPS’ databases so that they can decide whether to block email which originates from the listed sites.

Consequently, ISPs have to fear being listed by MAPS if they are not aggressive in combating spam. As a result, many ISPs will shoot first and ask questions later when one of their clients is accused of spamming.

How do you protect yourself from spam complaints?

First and foremost find an ISP or hosting company that takes a proactive approach to spam complaints. Review their Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) or Terms of Service (TOS). If the AUP or TOS does not state how or what their process is for handling spam complaints, ASK! Also ask them about their attitude regarding SpamCop. It appears that SpamCop is becoming the defacto spam clearing house.

When an ISP or hosting company receives a spam complaint, their policy should be to diligently, and swiftly investigate the reported incident. They should make every attempt to determine the actual origin of an email, as well as the intention before making a determination. Their policy should be to issue a warning first.

If you have an opt-in, opt-out mailing list, it should not be a problem. Even then the possibility does exist for someone to “forget” that they opted in. Using a double opt-in method list is ideal for maintaining opt-in lists. The request to be added to a list is submitted and then the submitter has the requirement to confirm the request prior to actually being placed on the mailing list.

People writing articles for publication in electronic newsletters should be particularly careful in selecting their ISPs and hosting companies. The possibility exists that an article could be published in a newsletter that someone claims to be spam.

In short, there isn’t a set, specific method of determining how someone will react to a mailing, however using common sense, and reading as much as possible about the pitfalls of spam, should steer readers clear of any major problems.

Some links readers may find helpful: http://www.dtcc.edu/cs/rfc1855.html http://spam.abuse.net/whatisspam.html http://www.spamcop.net

For a law to take effect on the U.S. federal level, both the House and the Senate must pass the bill and then the President of the United States must sign the bill into law.

Last year we almost got a SPAM law on the books when House legislators approved their version of the SPAM bill, H. R. 3113, the “The Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2000″, with a vote of 427-1.

However, it never came close to becoming law because the Senate never even voted on it.

This year, there are already several attempts being made to place SPAM under the law.

The most recognized is known as bill HR 95, which is a re-introduction of H. R. 3113 from last year and is named: “To protect individuals, families, and Internet service providers from unsolicited and unwanted electronic mail.” http:/ homas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.00095:

A SUMMARY AS OF: 1/3/2001–Introduced.

“Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001 - Amends the Federal criminal code to provide criminal penalties for intentionally initiating the transmission of any unsolicited commercial electronic mail message (message) to a protected computer in the United States with the knowledge that any domain name or other initiator identifying information contained in or accompanying such message is false or inaccurate.

Prohibits any person from sending such a message unless the message contains a valid e-mail address, conspicuously displayed, to which a recipient may send notice of a desire not to receive further messages.

Makes it unlawful for a person to initiate the transmission of such a message in violation of a policy regarding unsolicited commercial e-mail messages that complies with specified requirements, including requirements for notice and public availability of such policy and for an opportunity for subscribers to opt not receive such messages.

Directs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to notify violators under this Act, to prohibit further initiation of such messages, and to require the initiator to delete the names and e-mail addresses of the recipients and providers from all mailing lists.

Provides a right of action by a recipient or provider against e-mail initiators who violate the above requirements. “

As bill HR 95 stands right now, it is not expected to pass vote in the House for two reasons, even though the language of the bill is exactly the same as that passed last year in a vote of 427-1:

First, because of the language that allows for a one-time email to be sent so long as a valid return email address is provided by the sender and the sender removes anyone the so requests to be removed from that mailing list.

Although this is the same exact language that was included in the bill that passed the House last year, many SPAM fanatics are raising objections to its’ inclusion in the bill this year.

Second, is the language in the last paragraph that would allow a “right of action by a recipient or provider”, the problem being that the law would allow Internet Service Providers, ISP’s, to file for monetary damages against spammers to the tune of $500 per email sent or $50,000 per mailing incident.

Opponents argue that ISP’s would be filing against anyone that might be accused of SPAM, guilty or not, in hopes of reaping big financial gains.

Considering how SPAM compalints are often handled these days with innocent people having their services terminated or web site shut down without even having allegations of SPAM investigated, perhaps there is reason for such fears of abuse.

A search of both the Senate, http://www.senate.gov/ and the House, http:/ homas.loc.gov/ found only the following under The keyword “Spam”:

Two other bills introduced in the House are:

1. Wireless Telephone Spam Protection Act - H.R.113 : http:/ homas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:1:. emp/~c107WLOF59::

2. Anti-Spamming Act of 2001 - H.R. 1017: This Act may be cited as the `Anti-Spamming Act of 2001′ http:/ homas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c107:2:. emp/~c107WLOF59::

Rep. Gene Green, from the 29th District in Texas and is the sponsor of HR 95, so if you wish to make any suggestions or comments on the proposed Spam Law, he can be reached by any of the following:

HON. GENE GREEN 2335 Rayburn HOB Washington, DC 20515 (202) 225-1688 Fax: (202) 225-9903

HON. GENE GREEN 256 N. Sam Houston Pkwy. E., Suite 29 Houston, TX 77060 (281) 999-5879 Fax: (281) 999-5716

If you would like to send him an email, you may do so by visiting his official web site at: http://www.house.gov/green/ and filling out the supplied form.

Even as fresh disapproval for the anti-piracy law comes in from national security agencies like MI5 and MI6, Lord Mandelson has reaffirmed that there is no question of reconsidering or re-evaluating the measures to be taken. The law will be in force soon, he assured.

The anti-piracy law aims to curb illegal downloads and unauthorised file sharing over the internet. When the next Digital Economy bill is passed, this law is expected to come into force. However, a lot of protest has been raised against the provision of this law that will authorise disconnection of service for habitual offenders.

Service providers and the public have both pointed out several disadvantages that monitoring and interference will give rise to. Recently, law enforcement agencies joined the protestors in saying that having complex monitoring systems to track and measure activity online is set to be a time and money consuming process and will probably be ineffective in many cases, as offenders will use encryption to avoid detection.

However, Lord Mandelson set aside all these objections and announced that his plans will soon be enacted, as stern measures are definitely the need of the hour to tackle piracy menace. Once the law comes into force, suspected offenders may initially have their bandwidth throttled. If this does not discourage them from continuing illegal activities, their accounts will be disabled. Ofcom has been assigned the task of monitoring the usage.

The law will come into force in 2010 with provision for bandwidth restriction. If this proves inadequate, a tougher policy authorising disconnection will be implemented in 2011. The internet provider and content source will share costs incurred in monitoring.

For any information on broadband, Broadband Genie

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Internet is a core resource and a vital daily part of both business and private acitivities, however, if it suddenly consists of a lot of ilegitimate email-s and junk, then its becomes irritating and frustrating to both the IT department, the users and in the end the entire company.

With the spreading of web and easily accessible and comprehensible to every age group people, the volume of spam e-mail has exponentially increased and with that, the cost of cleaning unsolicited e-mails from inboxes. It is very common to underestimate the cost of getting rid of spam - the reason is that is just takes a couple of seconds to remove one single spam e-mail. But when spam mails suddenly appear in hundres or thousands on a daily basis it becomes a serious problem - consuming time and users’ focus.

Unwanted e-mails do not just play the role of being annoying, they have a major side effect on the performance of an entire organisation ocuupying network and abusing bandwidth. Every single spam message increases bandwidth cost - worst case spam consumes more than 55% of your entire network.

Companies ranging from big names that have dedicated department of IT security to small enterprises, which spend a very small proportion of their annual budget on web security, are plagued by unproductive bandwidth. Furthermore, governments at all levels - local and regional - have tried to implement legislation aimed at spammers, unfortunately this has not helped fight spam sufficiently as spammers are able to continue their criminal activities using the latest and most advanced technologies.

Spam e-mailers have formed their own underground community equipped with networks of hosted computers and innovative attack methods. Analysis shows that spam drain both time and financial resources and organisations face security issues because they expose their internal network to e.g. malware, spyware and trojahns.

These online threats highlight the need of installing effective hosted unwanted message protection on mail servers to reduce operation costs and to protect networks from collapsing. Oursourcing all mail services can especialy help companies to remove the online threats caused by spam.

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The trouble filtering the users’ inboxes on a daily basis is now handled by the outsourced hosted service, and it adds valuable and understandable information about the entire process for non-technical users.

Author:Julia Sue-Beck