The Major Points on Spam

With the rise of spam the CAN-SPAM was enacted in January, 2004. The act covers any email which have as its purpose advertising or promotional efforts for any service or product, including those whose contents reside solely on a web site.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the United States agency for consumer protection, was granted the authority to enforce the act and the DOJ, or Department of Justice is additionally charged with the enforcement of the CAN SPAM act. It also provides that Internet Service Providers who are hurt by the spam may in fact sue the violators of the legislation to recoup losses to their own business.

Major provision of the law - It bans misleading subject lines. The subject line must not mislead the recipient to open the email under false pretenses. It should clearly indicate the actual subject matter of the email.

Keep yourself protected from inbox spam

Friend or Foe? Just because an email has been sent to you by a friend, do not assume that it safe for you to open any attachment that comes with it. Contact your friend and verify that they did indeed send it. Very often, spammers will attach a virus to their spam, which, if opened, will hijack your email program and mail itself out to every email address in your address book. This fraudulent email will appear to the recipients to have been sent by you. If they in turn, open this email attachment, the same malicious cycle is repeated.

Never Respond. Do not click on any banner advertising or send a reply to a spam message. Doing this lets the spammer that yours is a "real, live" address, which will only result in a deluge of even more spam. Unless you have specifically subscribed, do not click on any unsubscribe messages contained in junk mail. Most of these are only intended to fool you into confirming your address as valid. Also, do not forward any junk chain letters you may receive.

To Report Spam Abuse

Each type of spam will violate the law in one way or another and each can be prosecuted if it can be proven.

A common spam scam you may come across is called a "419 Scam", or the Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud. These spam emails generally relates a tale of woe - a death in the family and a huge inheritance that the sender needs your (financial) help to claim. As improbable as it sounds, many people have fallen for this scam and millions of dollars have been defrauded from them. Fax a copy of this spam along with the header information to the United States Secret Service.

For reporting report to www.spamcop.net. This is a third party agency which will report spam on your behalf to the relevant anti-spam agency.

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