December 23, 2009

Is the CAN-SPAM Act enough?

Posted in Emerging media tagged Can-Spam Act, email, spam at 10:58 am by personamediagroup

Just like the annoying sales calls that we once received at inappropriate times, there is no right time to receive unsolicited emails or spam or be marketed to without knowing that in fact a search link is an ad or a sponsored link.  Businesses receive about seven spam messages a day and spammers cost businesses an estimated $7.8 billion for computer repairs, parts and replacement from 2004 to 2006 as a result of viruses and spyware.  Computer replacement is not fun for any individual or company and restrictions as well as fines should be placed on these spamers that destroy one of our most valuable commodities- our gateway to the worldwide web. Just like I can be placed on a do not call list, I would like to be placed on a do not send me unsolicited email list.

Although the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 exists it does not serve as a catch all for phishing emails i.e. your Bank has compromised your online login information so give it to me or those from other countries that send you emails like U.K. Lottery Winning or falsify themselves like they are one of your friends that needs help and only asking you to Western Union them some money or you have been given a job as a director of development but the only caveat is to send the money to us by Western Union.  All of these email seem fraudulent to me but what about those not so Internet savvy folks that fall for these hook line and sinker. The grandma that has an email address and uses the Internet primarily for online casino games, who gets the phishing scam email and inadvertently gives  over her personal information to only have her bank account cleared.

You can’t just walk up to or call someone with such craziness and for most of us our email address has become just as personal as the mail that we receive at home so there should be rules to protect us. So it’s good to see that First Amendment protection does not extend to spam or deceptive advertising. However, tighter guidelines as well as better monitoring should exist to lasso in these thieves of our Internet temples.

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