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By Michael D. Jenkins
Federal Government Comes Down Hard on (U.S.) SPAMmers
The U.S. Congress has enacted legislation, effective in 2004, in an attempt to stem the flow of unwanted, unsolicited junk e-mail ("SPAM") and "porn mail" on the Internet, by enacting the "CAN-SPAM" Act [15 U.S. Code Sec. 7701]. This law imposes hefty penalties of up to $250 per violation (limited to $2 million total) on SPAMmers who engage in any of these practices:
• Distributing "porn mail" -- commercial e-mail with sexual content, such as messages promoting pornographic web sites or sale of pornography.
• Sending out e-mail with deceptive "headers" or subject lines, which disguise the nature of the commercial message within.
• Sending e-mail with false return addresses ("spoofing") or false IP (Internet Protocol) addresses;
• E-mail solicitations sent to "harvested" addresses (gathered automatically from Internet web sites by special robot software) or to "dictionary lists" of e-mail addresses created by mechanically generating large numbers of target addresses, such as: abc1@xyz.com, abc2@xyz.com, abc3@xyz.com, etc.
• Sending e-mail solicitations to recipients who have requested that the sender (or all senders) cease sending messages to that recipient, more than ten business days after such a request; or
• Sending fraudulent e-mail, such as chain letters, or promoting other fraudulent schemes such as the now famous Nigerian Scam, which has bilked gullible and greedy folks out of billions of dollars (making that particular scheme the second largest source of foreign exchange for the nation of Nigeria, second only to its oil exports).
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