Fighting malware and spam

Law to stop spam reaching kids dubbed a failure

Utah registry to protect children's email leaks cash and addresses.

A law enacted in the state of Utah, as well as some other states, with the aim of preventing spammers from targeting the email addresses of children by compiling a registry of underage email users' details and forcing email marketers to remove any addresses included on it from their mailing lists, has been labelled a failure after huge projected revenues failed to materialise, costs rocketed and supposedly protected addresses were leaked.

According to law professor and online marketing expert Eric Goldman, the Utah law, which has been in force for two years, has lost the state money despite predicted earnings of $3-6 million per year. Revenues were expected to come from charges levied for access to the registry for checking purposes, required for anyone wishing to send legitimate bulk email in the state. The income, far less than predicted, was further reduced by an 80% cut taken by Unspam, recently in the news thanks to a major anti-spam lawsuit brought by an associated group, who promoted and managed the system.

The system suffered further setbacks after some addresses were leaked from the list, despite assurances from Unspam of total security, and costly lawsuits defending the appropriateness of the law, after complaints from several civil rights groups, continue to rack up fees and costs.

Details can be found in a blog entry from Goldman, here.

04 May 2007

Tags: legal, spam.