The Only Way to Can the Spam

Now everyone knows the war on spam is really getting serious: Bill Gates himself has declared war on junk e-mail. On June 24, the Microsoft (MSFT ) magnate posted his own call to arms on the company's Web site, joining Earthlink (ELNK ) and America Online (AOL ), two Internet service providers that have stepped up their legal battles against unsolicited e-mail. Disgusted with the rising tide of puerile and often sexually oriented solicitations flooding their inboxes, lawmakers in the federal government and state legislatures have also enlisted in the anti-spam brigade.

You can almost hear Corporate America cheering along the parade route: Daily torrents of spam cost employees hours every week sifting through and discarding hundreds of pesky and/or lewd come-ons. Ferris Research, an electronic-research firm, estimates that spam costs U.S. businesses $10 billion annually. And sometime this summer, spam will grow to greater than 50% of all e-mails sent, according to spam-filtering outfit BrightMail.

FUTILE EFFORTS? Spam haters are fighting back (see BW Online, 4/22/03, Anti-Spammers Get Serious.) The weapons of choice so far: Spam-filtering technology from companies such as BrightMail and ClearSwift. Increasingly, ISPs are suing U.S.-based spammers to cease and desist. In Washington, Congress is considering nine different bills designed to reduce spam, including a proposed do not spam registry system similar to the do not call registry that telemarketers must now follow. Thirty-four states have anti-spam legislation that authorizes civil or criminal penalties against senders of unsolicited e-mail.

So victory should soon be at hand, right? Not so fast. Unfortunately, these efforts are probably destined to fail. Worse, they could well have the perverse effect of making spam even harder to stop. Just as poorly used antibiotics help to create stronger bugs, the current scattershot efforts will likely create smarter spammers with more effective delivery methods. Here's why.