Spam becomes a felony in Virginia
Plus: AOL blocks 2 billion spam e-mails in a day
By Bambi Francisco, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 10:52 AM ET April 30, 2003
DULLES, Va. (CBS.MW) -- On the eve of a Federal Trade Commission conference on the nettlesome problem of "spam," America Online's home state is making it a felony to send high-volume, unsolicited junk e-mails.
"Half the world's Internet traffic passes through the Commonwealth of Virginia, so it is appropriate that we give our prosecutors tools to go after this costly and annoying crime," said Gov. Mark Warner, who signed the legislation into law at AOL Time Warner's (AOL: news, chart, profile) headquarters in Virginia on Tuesday. It takes effect July 1.
AOL said Wednesday that it blocked 2.37 billion spam e-mails earlier this week, the first time the Internet access provider crossed the 2 billion threshhold. That's more than double the amount AOL was blocking just two months ago.
Now, AOL is blocking 1.6 million junk e-mails a minute.
"This law will help us do more than just 'can the spam,'" said AOL veteran Ted Leonsis, vice chairman and president of the Internet provider's core service arm.
"It will allow law enforcement to hammer the spammers with the toughest criminal penalties of any state. It's high-noon for junk mailers, and it's time to let law enforcement take them from behind their computer screens and put them behind bars," he said.
"Spam is the organized crime of the Internet," said Susan Getgood, senior vice president for SurfControl, a company that makes e-mail filtering technology.
To qualify for the felony provisions under Virginia's new law, the sender must "consciously" alter their e-mail header or other routing information and attempt to send 100,000 messages in a 30-day period or generate $1,000 in sales from a specific transmission, or $50,000 from total transmissions.
"Hard-core hackers and spammers -- who produce the most offensive and persistent e-mail solicitations, actually aimed at crippling servers -- will now be faced with a class 6 felony in Virginia, which carries a prison term of between one and five years and a fine," according to a release.
That said, 26 states already have some laws to fight spam, but they've been largely ineffective. To date, junk e-mail could cost U.S. businesses more than $10 billion this year, and $4 billion in lost productivity, according to the Virginia governor.
Biz spam more dishonest
The FTC revealed in a study Wednesday that spam about investment offers was the leading category of spam and proved to contain the most false or misleading information.
The agency, which analyzed 1,000 pieces of spam to determine if spam was false or misleading, found that 96 percent of spam concerning investment or business opportunities contained false "From" or "Subject" lines or message text. This compares to 66 percent of all spam analyzed.
The FTC also said that 20 percent of junk mail involved investment and business opportunities, such as work-at-home and franchise offers as well as and chain letters.
This category even exceeded the "adult" mail category, which includes online dating services. This category accounts for 18 percent of all spam e-mail.
It was also determined that "adult" e-mail contained misleading or false claims, but to a lesser extent than the investment spam e-mails.
One in every three "adult" spam messages contained false information in the "subject" line.
Seventeen percent of pornographic offers in the spam analyzed by the FTC contained "adult imagery." More than 40 percent of pornographic spam messages contained false statements in the "From" or Subject" lines, raising the probability that recipients would open messages without knowing that images would appear.
A key takeaway is that the investment category, along with the finance category -- which includes information regarding credit cards, refinancing and foreign money offers -- accounted for 38 percent of all spam.
The bottom line is that "adult" spam and investment opportunities and finance-related spam account for more than half the spam in your e-mail box. Leisure-travel related spam only accounted for 2 percent of all spam.
Of course, this study raises the question: What is spam?
Eighty-two percent of 1,600 people surveyed by SurfControl said that spam was unsolicited mass e-mail even if it comes from legitimate or well-branded business. |
