E-Nino
For Bill Levinson, the last straw came when junk e-mailer Cyber Promotions ignored repeated requests to remove him from the company’s mailing lists.
Ed Cherlin drew the line at unsolicited commercial e-mails that hide the true identities of their senders, an annoying trick used to stymie complainers.
And Christopher Smith heard so many complaints from Netizens fed up with the unwanted digital dispatches that he called on Congress to put a stop to them.
The three are part of a growing consumer backlash against the Internet scourge known as spam. The unwanted e-mails--usually sent to large, unsuspecting groups and often pitching pornography or multilevel marketing schemes--have proliferated over the last year, causing great personal aggravation and costing Internet service providers millions of dollars in equipment and human resources.
To fight back against the practice, Levinson, an engineer and industrial statistician, created a Web page containing step-by-step instructions for tracking down junk e-mailers and blocking their wares.
Cherlin founded the Coalition Against Unwanted Commercial Email, which has signed 7,000 members in less than seven months. And Smith, a Republican congressman from New Jersey, has introduced a bill that would put spam on a par with illegal junk faxes.
Why the growing sentiment to get back at bulk e-mailers? Battling the influx of spam “is becoming more and more of a burden,” said Deirdre Mulligan, staff counsel for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit public interest group in Washington that is leading a multi-industry task force to define the scope of the problem and outline possible solutions. “You feel as if there’s no way for you to win this on your own,” she said.
Perhaps that’s why spammers are now facing a multi-pronged attack that appears to be gaining ground. Internet service providers such as America Online and Earthlink Network are levying fines against junk e-mailers and suing them in court--and so far the networks are winning. Once known as spammer havens, ISPs are now kicking the worst offenders off their networks. In Congress, no fewer than four members have proposed national legislation aimed at curtailing spamming.
According to Net lore, the term “spam” comes from a “Monty Python” television show sketch featuring a restaurant that included Spam, the spiced meat product, in every dish. In the sketch, a background chant of “Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!” grows louder and louder until it overtakes all conversation. Contributors to Usenet newsgroups were the first to apply the term to unwelcome e-mail that stifles other communication.
Like many consumer crusades, the anti-spam effort began at the grass-roots level. Survey.Net, a public survey Web site, asked Netizens whether unsolicited commercial e-mail was bothering them. Of the nearly 1,300 respondents, 42.9% said spam is “excessively annoying,” while another 26.8% said they found it merely “annoying.” Nearly nine out of 10 respondents said they receive at least one spam a week, and 45.2% said that dealing with it costs them “significant time and money.”
Not surprisingly, Cyber Promotions President Sanford “Call Me Spamford” Wallace says the outcry against spam is exaggerated and that many Netizens respond favorably to the e-mail. Otherwise, he said, his Dresher, Pa.-based firm wouldn’t have 11,000 customers and healthy profits.
“There’s a feeling among many Internet users that the Internet is somehow a sanctuary from ads,” said Wallace, who relishes the Public Enemy No. 1 status he has achieved through his mass e-mailings. “We, on the other hand, believe the Internet is no different than any other medium, and we have a right to send people ads.”
Hitting the delete button provides some relief for spamming victims, as does writing a nasty letter to the spammer. But with high-tech tricks, Wallace and his brethren can conceal their identities or adopt false ones.
“Tracking down spammers is beyond the technical capability of the vast majority of people,” said Ian Leicht, an advanced Web engineer at Science International Applications Corp. in San Diego and creator of Netizens Against Gratuitous Spamming (https://www.nags.org).
That’s why Cherlin and his Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email co-founders are pushing Congress to pass Smith’s bill. The so-called Netizens Protection Act of 1997 seeks to include spam in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, which makes it a crime to send unsolicited faxes. If the bill is passed, sending an unwanted e-mail would result in a fine of $500 per recipient--even more if the spammer intentionally violated the law.
“Self-regulation isn’t going to happen,” Cherlin said. “But if I can get $500, then it pays for me to [take a spammer] to Small Claims Court. It won’t make up for all of the damage we’ve suffered, but checks for $500 will gladden a few hearts here and there.”
Other congressional measures are less sweeping. A proposal from Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) calls for bulk e-mailers to develop voluntary guidelines that would allow consumers to block the messages. Senate bills from Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) would force spammers to honor requests to be removed from mailing lists. Spammers now are under no obligation to adhere to such requests.
In addition, Murkowski’s bill would require bulk e-mailers to include the word “advertisement” in the subject line to make the messages easier to filter. The messages would also be required to include a company’s true name, address and phone number, and recipients must be able to remove themselves from the list simply by hitting the reply button. Torricelli’s bill would prohibit the bulk harvesting of e-mail addresses from online services; it also has a provision for class-action suits against spammers.
Some ISPs aren’t waiting for the new legislation and are pushing ahead with lawsuits. A suit by America Online--which provides e-mail to more than 9.4 million customers--forced Cyber Promotions to stop using fake domain names and return addresses and abide by requests to be removed from its mailing lists. Last month, AOL filed two more suits against Over the Air Equipment, which was promoting a cyber-stripper Web site, and Prime Data Systems, a company selling spamming software. Between 5% and 30% of AOL’s incoming e-mail is spam, said George Vradenburg, senior vice president and general counsel for the Dulles, Va., company.
“The only e-mail that should be coming into our system from the Internet is mail that we authorize,” Vradenburg said. “This is plain-old-vanilla trespass, because they’re using our property without our permission.”
(Rick Lee, president of Over the Air Equipment in Las Vegas, denied most of AOL’s claims but declined to discuss the case until it is resolved. However, in a posting on its Web site at https://www.babeview.com, the company challenges AOL to cease its own “mass mailings of unsolicited AOL promotional material.” Prime Data Systems, of Bowling Green, Ky., could not be reached for comment.)
At Earthlink Network in Pasadena, the system administrator and network operations groups spend so much time fighting spam--writing software and complaining to other ISPs--that it uses up the equivalent of six full-time employees, said Harris Schwartz, manager of network security. Once a popular Internet service provider among spammers, Earthlink today will announce a policy of charging customers who send unsolicited e-mails $200 and terminating their accounts. Earthlink also won a permanent injunction against Cyber Promotions in May and is suing the company for $4.2 million to reimburse its spam-related costs, including personnel, equipment and lost business. Cease-and-desist orders have been sent to eight other spammers as well.
Even Apex Global Internet Services, an Internet backbone provider in Dearborn, Mich., has begun cutting spammers off from its network. AGIS has long been considered a “spam haven” for its willingness to serve bulk e-mailers. In April, the company encouraged five of the largest offenders to form the Internet E-Mail Marketing Council and adopt more ethical practices, said Jason Delker, AGIS’ manager of public relations and market research.
But according to Delker, that effort at self-regulation didn’t work. By mid-September, angry spam recipients were sending e-mail bombs and creating “ping floods” (a series of short Internet messages) to AGIS in a retaliatory attempt to disrupt the company’s network. Soon after, three spammers--Cyber Promotions, Integrated Media Promotions and Quantum Communications--were disconnected. AGIS still carries traffic from other bulk commercial e-mailers, although Delker insists that they make up less than 3% of AGIS’ customer base.
But Cyber Promotions isn’t letting AGIS slow it down. This week, Wallace will announce that his company has built its own network and also will make it available to other spammers.
Still, Delker believes that the self-regulatory council was worth a shot--even though other ISPs were quicker to dump spammers.
“Had we had some more cooperation, it would have worked,” he said. “If there’s a better solution, we would have seen it by now.”
Meanwhile, spam recipients can look to the Web for do-it-yourself solutions. Levinson’s page, Spam Delenda Est (Latin for “Spam Must Be Destroyed”) at https://www.ganesha.org/ptb/delenda.html, offers step-by-step instructions for sifting through techno-babble to find the junk e-mailer’s Internet service provider or host server. It also includes links to tracing sites, like the one maintained by InterNIC, an organization that registers Internet names.
Leicht, the Web engineer, decided to share some of his spam-hunting techniques online. His site includes a program that filters out junk e-mail. Another strategy is to repeatedly call the toll-free numbers advertised in the spam messages to run up the company’s phone bill.
Steve Rimmer, who hosts another anti-spamming site called Death to Spam (https://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/nospam.html), believes a popular outcry can help turn the tide against spamming.
“As people get more and more aware of the Internet,” Rimmer said, “there will be fewer suckers who will be naive enough to try spamming people, because it’s so self-destructive.”
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Karen Kaplan covers technology, telecommunications and aerospace. She can be reached at karen.kaplan@latimes.com
