Perpetually controversial, habitually debated, and under litigated . . . The topic must be spam. If all parties concerned set aside personal agendas, SpamCon could unite those most affected by email abuse and bring about the beginning of the end for spam.

by Patricia Fusco ISP-Planet Managing Editor [June 22, 2001]

A lot of anti-spam groups have come and gone, but the few advocates that endure possess the same singular quality—Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) and Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) with its Realtime Blackhole List (RBL)—effectively help stem the turbulent flow of unsolicited email.

Next of kindred
Enter The SpamCon Foundation, which aims to bring together email marketers, infrastructure administrators, end users and legal professionals in a all-out coordinated attack against spam.

Tom Geller, SpamCon Foundation founder and director, is intent on getting the people together that could collectively eradicate email abuse—once, and for all. The group is in the process of securing its U.S. 501(c)(3) non-profit status in order to become a fully independent non-profit entity.

This is not Geller's first dalliance with unsolicited email. Geller Communication, Inc. backed suespammers.org, an online legal resource for email abuse victims seeking to recover damages from spammers. Geller was also named the Director for Industry Affairs for CAUCE, earlier this month.

Geller contends that spam is the bane of the email industry carrying an $8 billion price tag that swallows 10 percent of the world's Internet operations costs. But that's only direct income losses; Geller said indirect expenses incurred by spam include undermining legitimate marketing organizations credibility, ISP customer churn, and end user outrage.

"The SpamCon Foundation aims to give all affected parties ways to stem the flow. This is the next step for anti-spam activists to go on the attack," Geller said. "We're mobilizing people to develop best practices standards and spell out the principles of opt-in marketing. Along with other initiatives, we're forming a single line of defense against spam and attacking spammers."

The SpamCon Foundation exists to protect email as a viable communication tool by reducing the amount unsolicited email that is transported over private networks—while ensuring that non-spam messages reaches its intended recipients. To fulfill these goals, SpamCon is attempting to educate the public, establish email marketing standards, implement email abuse handling procedures, and communicate end users rights and responsibilities.

SpamCon champions
Nuala O'Connor, DoubleClick vice president and chief privacy officer, said developing reasonable practices is the key to building a sensible obstruction to spam.

"Email is an excellent marketing medium—it's intimate, immediate, and convenient. DoubleClick supports efforts toward communication among Internet infrastructure professionals, legal institutions and end users to promote responsible email marketing methods," O'Connor said. "We're all affected by spam, and together we can create reasonable practices for email communication that curtail abuse and promote effective e-commerce."

Ted Gavin, Internet Societal Task Force Privacy and Personal Security Working Group co-chairman, said Internet policy makers, also recognize the need to work together.

"The technical community has been fighting irresponsible email use for years, and the problem continues to get worse. Clearly, the answer will not be found in building higher and stronger walls, nor will the answer be found in lobbying on the part of the marketing community," Gavin said. "The solution to making spam levels more manageable will be the result of open dialogue between the technical and marketing communities."

CAUCE Chairman Scott Hazen Mueller said those best served by the SpamCon Foundation are end users—banded together under the banner of The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email.

"CAUCE's duty is to protect its membership of over 30,000 email users from invasive and costly practices," Mueller said. "We're enthusiastic about The SpamCon Foundation's promise to help them represent their interests before email marketers, Internet Service Providers and law professionals."

And so—drumroll please, SpamCon 2001 was borne. The first vendor-neutral spam conference for those most affected by unsolicited email—Internet system administrators and email service companies. The first-ever event debuted at San Francisco in April, so it's perfect timing to revisit the group today and complete a reality check with a few participants as to the success or failure of the event—and the anti-spam movement.

Email marketer's take
Christopher M. Knight, SparkLIST.com president and co-founder was one of the few email marketing mavens that participated in SpamCon 2001. Knight said it's hard to say whether this is the group that could effectively unite ISPs with marketers to fight spam.

"There are quite a few groups like Geller's that are just at the gates of take off, but none that I'd join their cause yet," Knight said. "I've been asked by quite a few and I just don't see any that make sense. Other groups are so self-serving and biased that we can't become part of their scene yet."

Knight added that SpamCon could work if more marketing people were involved.

"SpamCon attracted spam-haters, spam-mail administrators and anti-spam zealots, but generated very little marketer interest," Knight said. "Geller will need to get the marketers on board for SpamCon to be successful."

From the abuse desk
Chip Rosenthal, of Unicom Systems Development is well known among email administrators for his work with abuse-practices. He is also the author of Anti-Relay: Stop Third-Party Mail Relay, a technical resource for abuse desk staff.

Rosenthal said SpamCon has the potential to affect email abuse, but that the group's mission lies outside the charter of abuse-practice's mission.

"We are working to document some procedures and policies that are effective for abuse desk operations," Rosenthal said. "Spam volume will become negligible when two things happen. Legislation is needed to combat the false economies of unsolicited junk emailing. Also, ISPs need to charter and support effective abuse desks."

Abuse-practice's mission may differ substantially from SpamCon's goals, but Rosenthal and Geller face similar barriers to success.

The challenge abuse-practice's needs to over come is presenting its case for abuse desk support to corporate management," Rosenthal said. "We tell CEOs that 'abuse handling a shared responsibility,' and they just sit there and look at us funny."

Rosenthal added the group is in the process of developing a business model that explains why building a strong abuse desk is a sound executive decision.

Spam interrupted
Geller has the right idea about uniting email marketers with spam-haters. Rosenthal is smart to secure executive support of uniform abuse-desk policies. Knight is wise to align his email marketing businesses with a best practices watchdog.

All this trio needs to do is agree that SpamCon is the venue where anti-spam fanatics, email marketers, and administrators can set aside their different agendas to seek a common solution.

One more thing—they each should bring a few more folks of dissimilar ilk to the conference table for the next SpamCon program—this grand experiment could be the start of the end of spam.

— End