Spam's Next Escalation

As the fight against bot-based spam continues, so-called "legitimate marketers" are turning nasty to get through the filter—or paying pennies to ISPs and the U.S. government.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 13, 2007]

Michael Peddemors, founder of Surrey, Canada-based Wizard IT Services and its subsidiary LinuxMagic, has watched spam for some time and is fed up with a few things. (For more on the product, see MagicMail Anti-Spam from LinuxMagic, published Friday.)

First of all, there's so-called "legit" e-mail marketing. Some skirt within the letter of the law while violating its spirit. "One customer had 33 messages from two companies in one day. All of the messages were (loosely) CAN-SPAM compliant. Many, of course, buy their opt in permission from other companies."

In response to this flood, ISP customers leave. "The average person changes their e-mail to avoid spam," says Peddemors, "and that's bad for ISPs."

Would disposable e-mail addresses solve the problem? ISP-Planet's a big fan of the idea, in which you create an e-mail like me.amazon@isp.com and can then see whom Amazon sells your address too (this works for snail mail too—just make "Amazon" your middle name).

"It's the worst possible solution," says Peddemors. "Today, your e-mail address is your identity. Customers should get only the e-mail they want at their e-mail address."

That's why we hate spam: it feels like a home invasion.

It compromises our ability to use the internet.

MIPSpace
In response, Peddemors has set up MIPSpace ("Just Say No to E-Mail Marketing"). The site lists known commercial e-mail marketing companies. ISPs can do what they wish with the list (including not use it). They can incorporate it into their spam scoring system. They can throttle or even block specific IP addresses.

Peddemors says customers want e-mail to be simpler, not more complex. "90 plus percent of your customer base don't want disposable e-mail addresses. They don't even want to manage their own whitelist and blacklist."

Customers want the ISP to block the spam for them.

Surrender
Some of the largest ISPs (and parts of the U.S. government) have given the e-mail marketing companies the right to direct access to customers' inboxes, for a fee. They are using Goodmail (see E-Mail Marketing System Pays ISPs, Eases Filtering), a system that pays an ISP a small monthly fee per mailbox (that fee adds up if you have millions of customers).

ISPs using Goodmail include AOL, Yahoo!, Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable's Road Runner ,and Verizon.

In addition, over 150 U.S. government agencies are using it, including the FBI, the CDC, and the Department of the Treasury.

Backlash
So far, concern has been muted (after some initial strong complaints about the relationship between AOL and Goodmail, the other ISPs joined and there was no further protest).

But there is a real demand for anti-spam services that block rapacious marketers. Earlier this year, Cloudmark introduced us to Lashback, a service that helps people unsubscribe from newsletters (see Keeping an Eye on Marketers).

In the future, it will only get more annoying. "I'm waiting for the first VoIP spam, when phones everywhere ring at 3 AM with the message, 'you have just won. To claim your prize. . . '"

"We're not against legitimate marketing," says Peddemors. "We would not have reached this point if they weren't so aggressive."

And we'd never have reached this point if regulators and politicians weren't defending the right to market, defending the rights of irresponsible companies instead of defending the rights of responsible individuals.

—End