Congress’ Next Target: Spam

Buoyed by the positive public response to a government crackdown on telemarketers, Capitol Hill lawmakers vowed Wednesday to set their sights next on e-mail spammers who clog in-boxes with more than 100 billion unsolicited electronic messages a day.

After years of ignoring the problem, Congress and several states are searching for ways to curb e-mail pitches for pornography, get-rich schemes and weight-loss elixirs.

“We can say no to unwanted visitors. We can say no to telemarketers. It’s time to let Americans say no to unwanted e-mail,” said Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-La.) at a hearing on spam held by the House subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection. “We are likely to get real action on [an anti-spam] bill this year.”

Two House measures and a Senate bill are considered the most likely to win congressional approval. Backers hope those bills will join anti-spam laws passed by more than two dozen states. California also is weighing tough anti-spam measures.

The federal efforts include the Anti-Spam Act of 2003, which would require senders of commercial electronic mail to disclose their real e-mail return address and honor customer requests to be taken off their mailing lists. The measure also would authorize Internet service providers as well as state and federal authorities to seek financial damages and prison terms for those who violate anti-spam provisions.

A second bill -- Tauzin’s Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act of 2003 -- is similar to the Anti-Spam Act but sets limits on financial damages. In the Senate, Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) has introduced a bill that would impose jail terms of up to five years and fines of up to $25,000 a day on anyone who sends “predatory and abusive commercial e-mail.”

Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee, said anti-spam legislation “enjoys broad support ... including from industry groups that once opposed it.... Let’s stop this nuisance now.”

Despite tough talk at Wednesday’s hearing, experts say spam is unlikely to yield solely to legislation.

“Outlawing it might make a bit of a dent, but it’s an incredibly complex and difficult task to stomp out spam,” said Alan Mosher, a research director at Probe Research in Cedar Knolls, N.J. “I don’t think it will ever go completely away.”

Telemarketers face significant start-up costs, can be thwarted by caller ID and other call-blocking technologies and, more recently, must contend with the Federal Trade Commission’s national “do-not-call” registry. But e-mail spammers can easily circumvent most efforts to block their messages.

That’s because all anyone needs to send spam is a computer and an Internet connection. Spammers can buy lists of millions of e-mail addresses for as little as $15, experts say. They then send out their pitches and cloak themselves in anonymity by exploiting open and unsecured e-mail gateways.

For example, e-mail return addresses and other identifying data can be forged, making spam difficult to trace. Spammers also can send e-mail through an intermediary computer rather than directly to an Internet service provider such as America Online Inc. or EarthLink Inc.

In fact, the rise of high-speed, or broadband, Internet service has enabled unscrupulous operators to “hijack” personal computers and send spam from the e-mail accounts of users who stay connected to the Internet.

Given the reach and unsecured nature of the Internet, several witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing emphasized that it would take more than laws to stop e-mail spam.

Charles Garry Betty, chief executive of EarthLink, the nation’s second-largest Internet service provider said technological solutions may offer “the most promising front in the fight against spam.”

Noting that he once received as many at 200 e-mail spam messages a day, Betty said he had not seen spam in his in-box since his company deployed technology that blacklists unrecognized senders of e-mail.