CAN-SPAM - a big bag of nothing?

Filed in archive Anti-Spam Tools on November 8, 2006

Jim Harper over at cato@liberty ponders that CAN-spam is not worth even the paper it is written on. Or disc space if you wish. In fact it is costing us a lot of $$, and does nothing really.

He points out to the TechWeb article, which says:

"MX Logic also noted that the percentage of September's junk mail that complied with the federal anti-spam CAN-SPAM Act hit an all-time low of 0.27 percent, down from 0.3 percent in August and 0.75 percent in July. A year and a half ago, compliance rates averaged 3 to 4 percent."

In my opinion, Americans could in fact take a leaf out of the UK's book and stir up something like Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which makes it illegal to send unsolicited e-mails and mobile phone text messages from a disguised address, and the receiver must have opt in first in order for anyone to send marketing messages. Although the UK's Regulations have their faults (for instance, a marketer can send all spam he wants to business e-mail addresses, all he has to do is to have an opt-out), it does sound good, doesn't it?

Let me hear you: CAN-SPAM, good or bad? Is it only a small step in the right direction, or is it good enough?