Spam threatens e-mail ease, popularity

If there's any good news on the spam front, it's that lawmakers on the state and federal levels are very much interested in controlling the unsolicited e-mailings that invade Internet users' mailboxes.

At best, spam is irritating. At worst, it attempts to defraud those who read it, expose our children to vile pornography and steal valuable time from businesses whose employees should be making money instead of cleaning out jam-packed electronic inboxes.

It's under these circumstances that Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon announced plans last year for legislation implementing a No Spam list similar to the state's highly effective and popular No Call list, which deterred unwanted telemarketers. Residents would be invited to sign up for the No Spam registry, and Nixon could prosecute spammers who sent unsolicited e-mail to those on the list. There were other anti-spam provisions in the measure, but Nixon indicated the registry was vital.

When it was all over, the registry was gone. Microsoft lobbyists descended on Jefferson City to convince legislators that the registry would just be a good way for unscrupulous marketers to get their hands on valid e-mail addresses.

And who isn't unscrupulous? Well, Microsoft, of course. That company wants to solicit its customers, who include just about everybody with a personal computer.

Missouri's watered-down bill passed and was sent on the governor. If signed, it will make it illegal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail to any subscriber who has asked the sender to stop, send unsolicited commercial e-mail without using "ADV:" as the first four characters in the subject line or "ADV:ADLT" if the message is about porn, or use a false identity or misleading information in the subject line of any commercial e-mail message.

Violators could be penalized up to $5,000 for each violation, up to $25,000 a day. (Many frustrated spam victims would say even these penalties are far too light.)

Some lawmakers and others have accused Microsoft of being interested only in preserving a market for its e-mail filtering systems. True or not, that software giant isn't alone. America Online and Yahoo! have lobbied against similar bills in other states.

So it doesn't ring very true when Bill Gates, Microsoft's founder, writes an op-ed piece in the June 23 Wall Street Journal (and reprinted in the Southeast Missourian) titled "Why I Hate Spam." Maybe it should have been "Why I Hate All Spam Except Mine."

Several federal bills are pending on the same issue. One includes a registry. Maybe there's a way to make it work.

But even Bill Gates can agree that spam is multiplying every day. If it isn't reduced significantly or eliminated entirely, the international e-mail system will collapse under its own weight, rendered useless by the glut of spam.