Anti-Spam Approaches -- the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (UCE), popularly known as SPAM is growing exponentially, flooding inboxes with filth and hucksterism. Along with a great deal of frustration, I see several approaches emerging.

Recipient Approaches

To protect themselves, e-mail recipients have resorted to several anti-spam strategies at the ISP and e-mail user software level:

1. Changing e-mail addresses when they become clogged by too much e-mail. Often, free e-mail addresses are set up and then either deliberately abandoned or forgotten. The problem with this approach is that legitimate contacts can easily be lost.
2. Filtering e-mail to exclude spam. An increasingly sophisticated point-based filtering system looks for signs of spam and when the point-total gets high enough, labels it as spam and excludes it from the recipient's view. The problem with this approach is that many legitimate, opt-in newsletters, for example, can be excluded by innocently tripping the spam filters as "false positives," even though recipients desire to receive them. In particular, marketing and e-commerce newsletters are subject to rejection since they use keywords in common with spammers. The recipient can designate certain e-mail addresses to a "whitelist" that are passed through the filters, but few recipients take the time to admit all their newsletters.
3. Challenge-response systems, operate something like instant messaging accounts that exclude all e-mail at the door. Those who seek admission must request permission individually and be approved by the recipient before they are admitted. After that, e-mail from these senders is admitted without question. The problem with this approach is that it takes an open system of e-mail, (something like an infrastructure of streets and highways) and switches it to a closed system (something like a gated community). These systems, such as SpamArrest (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/spamarrest.htm) or ChoiceMail (www.digiportal.com/), are designed so newsletter publishers cannot easily automate them. Each request must be manually and individually entered, making it time-consuming and raising the administrative costs of sending e-zines.

Legal Guidelines

Laws preventing spam abound at the state level, but these are practically unenforceable by state governments already overwhelmed with other enforcement issues. We need wise federal-level legislation, but how to monitor and enforce compliance is a tough issue.

Sender Certification

At the sender level, certified compliance to opt-in standards from companies such as Habeas (www.habeas.com) and Coravue (www.coravue.com), is just beginning but holds real promise for marketers. Habeas, Inc. now licenses e-mail publishers to carry copyrighted and trademarked header lines in compliant e-mail. Spam filters are being designed to recognize such certified compliance, passing through certified e-mail. Habeas charges a modest fee and has a financial incentive to bring civil suits against those who forge its headers or send out non-compliant e-mail under its headers. Finally, we have a workable approach with a clear revenue base which promises to curb spam and force legitimate businesses into compliance with confirmed opt-in e-mail list standards.

The Bottom Line

What is the best system? In my opinion, to solve the spam problem, we'll probably need to resort to a combination of approaches:

1. Set up private e-mail addresses for friends and close contacts requiring specific authorization, protected by some combination of a whitelist and challenge-response software.
2. Federal laws preventing spam sent without permission from the recipient, much like fax spam regulations.
3. Certification by senders who comply with strict requirements, with stiff civil and criminal penalties for forgers.
4. Spam filters that exclude the remaining spam and admit e-mail from certified senders.