Posted by: cAmz on: April 19, 2009
TITLE: Email Spam (Chapter 21)
AMAZON LINK: http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Information-Computer-Ethics/dp/0471799599/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233232091&sr=1-1
QUOTATION: E-mail spam has steadily, even exponentially grown since the early 1990s to several billion messages a day. Spam has frustrated, confused, and annoyed e-mail users.
LEARNING EXPECTATIONS:
- I want to know what email spam is.
- I want to understand how searching for a characterization of “spam” was done.
- I want to determine the number of identical email sent.
- I want to know what Unsolicited Commercial Bulk Emails (UCBE) is.
- I want to know the ethics of reducing the number of spam emails read after they are sent.
REACTION:
E-mail addresses are collected from chat rooms, websites, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users’ address books, and are sold to other spammers. Much of spam is sent to invalid e-mail addresses. ISPs have attempted to recover the cost of spam through lawsuits against spammers, although they have been mostly unsuccessful in collecting damages despite winning in court.
Spam is legally permissible according to the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 provided it follows certain criteria: a truthful subject line; no false information in the technical headers or sender address; “conspicuous” display of the postal address of the sender; and other minor requirements. If the spam fails to comply with any of these requirements, then it is illegal. Aggravated or accelerated penalties apply if the spammer harvested the email addresses using methods described earlier.
A review of the effectiveness of CAN-SPAM in 2005 showed that the amount of sexually explicit spam had significantly decreased since 2003 and the total volume had begun to level off. Senator Conrad Burns, a principal sponsor, noted that “Enforcement is key regarding the CAN-SPAM legislation.” In 2004 less than 1% of spam complied with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
Several countries have passed laws that specifically target spam, notably Australia and all the countries of the European Union.
Article 13 of the European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (2002/58/EC) provides that the EU member states shall take appropriate measures to ensure that unsolicited communications for the purposes of direct marketing are not allowed either without the consent of the subscribers concerned or in respect of subscribers who do not wish to receive these communications, the choice between these options to be determined by national legislation.
LESSON LEARNED:
- Spam has rapidly spread to many forms of electronic communication.
- An email that is from an unsolicited, commercial, bulk emailing, often considered spam, may provide a receiver with just the information that he/she does want.
- Email, such as email informing someone that he/she is fired, is unwanted but not spam.
INTEGRATIVE QUESTIONS:
