THE CUTTING EDGE: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Coming to a Computer Near You: Junk E-Mail
It’s hard to believe, but privacy is already becoming an issue for the average Internet user. In the case of World Wide Web sites that require a lot of registration information, users provide the data knowingly in exchange for access to what the site has to offer. That’s bad enough, since the data might well end up in some marketing database or on some hacker’s hard drive.
Worse yet, the decision to open yourself to sales pitches is increasingly being taken out of your hands. In the near future, when you log on, you may well be greeted by the clamor of unwelcome marketing. That’s right, thanks to the economics of the Internet--and the classic problem of the commons--junk e-mail is here, and a lot more is coming.
Consider Jeff Slaton, the Internet’s self-proclaimed “Spam King.” Slaton says he has assembled a database of 6 million e-mail addresses gleaned from all over the Internet, and for $425 he will send your ad to every one of them. He’ll also post it to every active Internet newsgroup and mailing list if you wish, even if the ad is for printer cartridges and the normal focus of discussion is poultry health or pig Latin. Sending all this stuff takes eight or 10 hours of computer time, but doesn’t cost much more than sending a single message. (“Spamming,” from an old Monty Python skit, is the Internet term for what Slaton is doing.)
Clever advertisers can target prospects based on your activities on-line. A posting to a forum or newsgroup on scuba diving, for instance, could bring solicitations for diving vacations, equipment and so forth. But Slaton doesn’t take the trouble to do much targeting; it’s just as easy, if not easier, to send to everybody.
Slaton won’t even let you e-mail him to get your name off his list, although he insists he was joking when he previously said he would charge $5 to perform this function. He now says that to get yourself removed, you have to call him at (505) 821-1945 (or write the Spam King at 5901J Wyoming Blvd. N.E., Suite 284, Albuquerque, NM 87109).
Threatening to give both royalty and lunch meat a bad name, the king offers no apologies for how he makes a living. Although he claims to be doing only four or five mass postings a day, Slaton insists he would gladly send the people in his database 100 or more, adding, “I only wish I had that much business.”
What an entrepreneur. Of course, Slaton’s activities are squarely in the great American tradition of profit from abuse of the commons. In this he’s no different from a business that pollutes the water without paying the cost of cleanup, or a driver who doesn’t bear the cost of his car’s emissions, instead spreading them around to everyone else. He gets the gain, we get the pain.
There’s no natural brake on this kind of behavior if those who engage in it lack the moral sense to see that if everyone did the same, the Internet would be rendered useless. Fortunately, junk e-mail and other privacy issues are getting more attention lately. And a couple of professional privacy advocates are launching efforts to turn the technology against its abusers.
First, Private Citizen Inc., a one-man war against junk mail waged by Robert Bulmash in Naperville, Ill., is extending its efforts into cyberspace. For years Bulmash has offered a devilishly clever weapon to consumers fed up with telemarketing calls: For $20, he’ll put you on a list that he regularly sends to more than 1,400 direct-marketing firms. Basically it tells the companies that by calling you, they agree to pay you $500 for your time and the use of your telephone. For $10, Bulmash will tell various direct-marketing concerns not to send you any junk snail mail.
Now Bulmash (prvtctzn@aol.com) is launching a service to notify senders of junk e-mail that consumers on his list don’t want any. Bulmash even contends that federal law barring unsolicited faxes also covers e-mail, based on how the statute defines a facsimile transmission. His view of this is controversial and may not stand up in court, but at the very least his service offers e-mail users a way to notify spammers to get lost.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center is building on Bulmash’s idea with plans for a massive, Internet-based drive to stamp out junk e-mail, according to EPIC Director Marc Rotenberg.
The plan is to set up a World Wide Web site where users can fill out a form that EPIC will transmit to junk mailers. The form will say that the user will only review unsolicited, commercially oriented e-mail for a fee, which Rotenberg said would be in the neighborhood of $100 an hour. Eventually, Rotenberg said, the system will probably use digital authentication, so there can be no doubt about the identity of the sender.
One hopes such efforts work to discourage spammers like Slaton, whose characterization of himself makes it clear what a deep sense of stewardship he brings to his business: “I’m simply riding the crest,” he says, “riding the wave as long as I can ride it, and then I’ll move on.”
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Daniel Akst welcomes messages at Dan.Akst@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at https://www.caprica.com/~akst/
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Privacy Talk
You don’t have to be paranoid to care about privacy in cyberspace. If you’re interested in the subject, you can visit the Electronic Privacy Information Center at https://www.epic.org/ or send e-mail to info@epic.org. Also worth a try: the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego, at https://www.manymedia.com/prc/. Among news groups, try comp.society.privacy and alt.privacy
