CAN-SPAM is a BUST

Well, duh. In what had to be one of the dumbest attempts to control spam, our government passed the CAN-SPAM law, which placed requirements on spammers to have verifiable return addresses, use opt-out lists, etc. This story, posted on Yahoo, reports that the law is a total bust. Non-compliance fell, meaning that just over 1/2 percent of spammers are actually following the law. Of course, the other 99.5 percent just aren’t bothering.

Folks, this is going to require a technological solution. I’ve implemented whitelists and a challenge/response system. It’s not pretty, but it works. Spam is too cheap to go away, so e-mail recipients are going to have to implement systems and demand that their e-mail service providers do the same.