resembles Virginia's law, prohibiting fraudulent return addresses and subject lines. (Spammers are often creative with subject lines, using things like "Re: Your Web site," "Hi" and other familiar terms to trick people into reading e-mail.)
Requiring honest subject lines would help ISPs and domain owners filter spam from their networks so consumers would never even see the stuff. "This would be a domainwide opt out," explains Joe Keely, a legislative aide in the office of Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), the sponsor of the bill. "This would be enforced by the FTC, state attorneys general or the ISPs themselves - who could sue spammers for damages of up to $50,000 a day."
So far, few businesses have responded to the growing outcry against spam, except in a token manner. In March, for example, Earthonline, a leading e-mail-related software manufacturer in Redmond, Wash., discontinued GeoList Professional, a product that harvests e-mail addresses, because, they say, they were shocked - shocked! - to find that it was being used for spamming. Company officials sent out a letter to customers and resellers explaining that GeoList was intended to create targeted lists of e-mail addresses - that is, focusing on specific states or regions.
"We have had reports of customers using this product as a nontargeted spam-list-collection tool," the letter stated. "We do not condone or promote spam as a way to market products. However, with reports of how the GeoList product is being used, it is our decision to make GeoList a discontinued product as of March 8, 1999."
However, the company still offers around a dozen more products, including Nitro, a tool that extracts e-mail addresses from 28 different search engines, and DirectMail, which can divvy up an existing ISP account into 30 different e-mail addresses - a convenient way to camouflage an unseemly amount of outgoing e-mail. "It's a very lucrative service to get into," says Ken Bailey, sales manager for the company.
Spam won't disappear. it's cheap, and it works. Among spam's biggest supporters are the call-center staff who answer the phone number listed on a widely circulated spam touting "Human Growth Hormone Available Now Without a Prescription, Biggest Medical Breakthrough in Fat Loss & Anti-Aging in the 20th Century." [It's unlikely you can buy such a product without a prescription.]
"We get so many customers, you can't even count 'em," says customer rep Louis John, who wouldn't reveal his company's name. "People are responding to the e-mail like crazy. Human Growth Hormone is a great product." John notes that the call center he works for provides order fulfillment for a multitude of tiny companies selling a variety of odd gift items - many of which market their services via spam.
"Spam is with us for good," says Mike Saguri, cofounder of Grand Towers Online Casino. "Just like the junk mail at home I sort through each day to get to the real mail. The real reason spam will never go away is because it makes money."
Saguri sends out e-mail touting his virtual casino, but insists that it's not spam. "We at Grand Towers Casino discourage our Webmasters from sending spam due to obvious reasons," he says, alluding to the fact that spam is considered unethical and unpopular. So he calls his missives "marketing e-mail," even though recipients - like the entire staff of The Industry Standard - do not ask to receive the messages.
"We would like to see some sort of mandatory law that if you send unsolicited e-mail, you should include a code at the top of your e-mail stating so. This way anyone could reject the e-mail if they wish," says Saguri.
"But so many Webmasters realize that if they send out 100,000 e-mails per day, they will probably get 400 to 1,000 cash responses per day. It's hard to understand why more business are not spamming the Net. Some of these advertisers are building small fortunes."
Saguri agreed by e-mail to share some of the responses
