CAN-SPAM Act Fails To Curb Rising Spam

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act, 2003, which was enforced on Dec. 16, 2003, establish prerequisites for distributing commercial email and decided penalizations in the event of infringement of any law by spammers and firms promoting their wares through these spam. Also, the act granted customers the right to request e-mailers to halt their spamming. In the last three years since the law was enforced, Barracuda Networks has observed different categories of spam multiplied almost threefold.

"The overall spam volume presently comprises nearly 85-90% of total emails over the net," alleged Stephen Pao, Barracuda Networks' vice-president of product management. "Despite the current growth in 'genuine' email, upsurge of spam regularly surpasses it."

During November 2006, the firm notified of above 67% upsurge in total spam amount and about 500% hike in graphic spam since August 2006. It thinks that legislation is an important method of combating spam since it lays down specific rules of conduct, which can be implemented only when applied along with silver bullet, like the Barracuda Spam Firewall, that helps to identify and shield against spam.

"Legislation was ineffective in checking the spam volume because it couldn't remove the driving force of the spammers," stated Pao, appending that spam has assumed criminal proportions over the last three years since CANSPAM and isn't just a mere irritant. "The growth of spam botnets, viruses and other malicious software for circulating spam has stepped-up the pace at which spammers can convey messages. Therefore, the total money they can get has also increased considerably as they can now catch their victims more easily and quickly. Basically, the cyber-crime still prevails due to the huge sum of money involved".

"Implementation of CAN-SPAM inside the entire anti-spam community can really make a difference in the universal battle against spam or all other email menaces," averred Dean Drako Barracuda Networks' president and CEO.

Related article: China’s Best Initiatives To Deal With Spam

» SPAMfighter News - 12/19/2006