More than half of all email sent today was spam. It is becoming the single greatest threat to the growth and prosperity of the Internet, save possibly for the unspeakable morons who actually buy things that spam advertises, thus giving the marketers a reason to do their stuff. The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a new bill that would, in theory, control most spam. The bill includes the following points:

• Allows the Federal Trade Commission to create a “do not spam” registry (the FTC is not required to do so);
• Requires “opt-out” links so people may unsubscribe from mailing lists;
• Messages must have a functioning return email address (to allow people to opt out);
• Messages must “obviously” be advertisements, no misleading subject headers (e.g., “Important Account Information”);
• Messages must have a valid U.S. postal address or P.O. box in the email;
• Outlaws dictionary spamming and address harvesting using bots;
• Outlaws automated programs that sign up for free email accounts to be used to send spam;

And in areas that particularly have teeth, there is a 3-year prison sentence for those who create fake domains or email accounts to send spam, and a 5-year sentence for those who send pornography in unsolicited spam.

I am not certain if it requires all spammers to put an “ADV” tag in each subject header.

Now, for the $64 question: will it work? In all likelihood–not a dang bit. All the spammers have to do is move their main operations off-shore, and they’re golden. In fact, some sources report that 80% or more of spam today comes from outside the U.S.

And if the FTC takes up the option of creating a “do not spam” registry, stay away–and stay away from those “unsubscribe” opt-out links–because it will only reveal your active email address to spammers, especially those overseas, who will then spam the heck out of you from their safe havens. More people may fall for that particular trap if it is legitimized by this legislation. Even if one were not so victimized, it is still a free pass for every individual spammer to send you at least one spam for free, and would require each recipient to opt-out from each spammer’s list–which could number in the thousands. A bit more effective, and much more protective of people’s privacy, would be an “opt-in” registry, requiring spammers to stay away from all addresses except those who add themselves to the list. Europe has such a law–and the irony of the new federal U.S. law would be that it would override state laws (like the new one in California) that do require the more restrictive opt-in requirement.

This new law really just appears to be showboating by the politicians to show they’re doing something about the problem, and, regrettably, may very well just lead to more spam overflowing your email box, rather than the reverse. What is needed is not a nation-wide, but a world-wide solution. There should be a new requirement for any country that wants to join the web: institute a set of tough spam laws, and enforce them–or else you get cut off from the web. Yes, that’s right–entire countries could get cut off. I really think that’s the only way to handle it, if it is technically possible. There might be some squawking, but if a majority of nations–especially those in Europe and North America, and key Asian countries–would stick to it and keep the rules reasonable, a great deal more progress could be made.

Another possibility I have heard and like is the charge-to-send (let’s call it “CTS”) email plan. Under this plan, everyone who wants to send email to a CTS email account would be required to have a pre-paid account on the web, say, five dollars minimum, attached to their email account. Every time you send an email to someone with such an account, the recipient has the option of charging you one cent per email. All they have to do is click on a button, or send the offending email to a mailbox where all contents are charged, and the sender notified. If the recipient does not do this, however, you are not charged.

Since most people send legit email to people they know, their accounts would never diminish. If someone abuses the system and tries to collect pennies, people would probably just stop sending emails to them. If you lose a few pennies here and there, however, there’s no big loss.

Spammers, on the other hand, would be in deep trouble. They routinely send out millions of emails every day. If their spam is caught by filters such as my own and routed to the “charge” folder, their spam–almost free for them today–could start costing them huge amounts of money. Heck, at a penny a pop, I estimate I could bring in $15 a month easy. And they could not circumvent the system, because it would have to be pre-paid, and if an account goes broke, email is returned. (We would have to increase security so that email accounts with their money prepaid could not be ‘stolen’ and turned to illicit spam-senders.)

The present email system could remain, but those entering the new system could have a new suffix added to their address to join the CTS email system. Those who don’t want to shell out the measly $5 fee could still use the old spam-infested email.

This would not be an undue burden on direct marketers–they already spend far more than a penny a piece to send ads through traditional mail and other routes; a penny per would still be a tremendous bargain–but it would force them to drastically cut their flood of spam, be very cautious of whom they send anything to, and actually honor anyone who wants to opt-out of their list.

If a business were to set such a system up, they might even make a fortune simply by collecting interest on the millions of multiples of five-dollar deposits they safeguard.