SPAM: More than Meat


November 24, 2001


BROOKE GLADSTONE: I love my computer, but increasingly I hate my e-mail, because several times a week I get about a dozen messages about hot, hot, hot college girls and stuff like that. Bob, should I forward those to you?

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] Please don't be ridiculous. [PAUSE] Yes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:[LAUGHS] In the 21st Century, spam is no longer first and foremost a luncheon meant. It's a sign to push the delete key over and over again. Reporter Jad Abumrad has this dispatch from the frontlines of the war on spam.

JAD ABUMRAD: A year ago, most of us were getting 16 a week. They appear without warning, all caps, exclamation points.

ROBOT VOICE: FIND OUT ANYTHING ABOUT ANYONE. ARE YOU FEELING SECURE? ENLARGE THE SIZE OF YOUR--

JAD ABUMRAD: All right -- that's enough. Point is, in just one year the number has doubled to 30. That's according to two different studies, one by Gartner Research; the other by direct marketing giant Double Click. [KEYBOARDING] Thirty. I thought that was a lot; that is until I met Chip Sprickman [sp?].

MAN: This is my-- today's spam that came into my mailbox - is 111 messages.

JAD ABUMRAD: Chip is a systems administrator for the Internet Channel, the company that works behind the scenes to make my e-mail work. I asked him to open my mailbox and analyze the previous night's offerings.

MAN: [READING] Explode your business by accepting credit cards. Viagra and more. Oh, there you go. See, that's a good old, that's a good old fake one there.

JAD ABUMRAD: The ubiquitous Viagra spam is a perfect illustration of how tricky spammers can be. First of all, their return address was forged. What's more, chip says, the spammer hijacked someone else's mail server to send out their message. It's what's known as a relay. In this case the victim was a small Virginia consulting firm -- Issue Dynamics Incorporated. [PHONE RINGING]

JACKIE: Good morning. Issue Dynamics Inc. Jackie speaking. May I help you?

JAD ABUMRAD: Are you aware that someone is secretly using your mail servers to send out spam?

JACKIE: No, but let me transfer you to someone that can help you there with that.

JAD ABUMRAD: The company's president, Sam Simon, assured me that IDI had just fixed the problem after several user complaints. In the case of e-mail fraud, the situation is clearly defined. Eighteen states have laws that make it illegal to send an e-mail with a fake address. But what happens when an e-mail is not fraudulent and you still don't want it. Should it be banned? No one seems to agree.

JIM CONWAY: Well first off, spam is legitimate. You know, let's start with - start it from there.

JAD ABUMRAD: Jim Conway is the vice president of government relations for the Direct Marketing Association in Washington. The DMA argues that spam, like speech, should be tolerated as long as it's free of lies.

JIM CONWAY: It's really come from left field where people have, have made perception this is a privacy issue. Where, where is the privacy? How is your privacy violated by turning on your c--annoyance perhaps--

JAD ABUMRAD: Conway is lobbying Congress against a bill that would impose penalties of up to 500 dollars per message.

JIM CONWAY: For what? Just because someone receives an e-mail with an offer of a product that they can simply with the click of a mouse get rid of it?

JAD ABUMRAD: But the click-and-get-rid-of-it argument doesn't fly with anti-spam crusaders like Ann Mitchell [sp?]. She is the legal director of the organization MAPS -- short for Mail Abuse Prevention System. Spamming she says is not like other forms of marketing, and that the person being marketed to is the one that has to foot the bill.

ANN MITCHELL: You know those telemarketers who call you during dinner? Okay, how annoying is that? Imagine if they called you collect and you were required to accept the call. That is what junk e-mail does to you.

JAD ABUMRAD: For an individual e-mail account the cost is only a few pennies in download time. But for e-mail providers like Earthlink or Hotmail, it can mean thousands of dollars in additional hardware and software to protect their users. So MAPS has ten matters into their own hands. They've created the real time black hole list, a simple list, they say, of sites they believe send out spam.

ANN MITCHELL: We are really no different than Consumer Reports or a restaurant reviewer.

JAD ABUMRAD: But e-marketers don't see it that way. They say landing on that list is the equivalent of being locked away in a padded cell with no windows -- effectively censored. The reason -- nearly half of all Internet service providers not only subscribe to the black hole list; they also use it as a giant e-mail filter. Several times this year alone e-mailers have sued MAPS after being consigned to the black hole. But Mitchell contends that MAPS only compiles the list, and it's for others to choose how to use it.

ANN MITCHELL: You know -- could you imagine McDonald's suing a restaurant reviewer for panning the Big Mac?

JAD ABUMRAD: The thing everyone agrees on is that an e-mail isn't spam when the user gives permission to receive it. But the question is: what constitutes permission? Most marketers say it's enough for users to check a box on a web site. But MAPS says this would not stop others from signing you up for lists without your knowledge, which is why they require marketers to ask users for a second e-mail confirmation. To Curt Cunningham [sp?] of Double Click this is overkill.

CURT CUNNINGHAM: We actually did some research and consumers actually found that to be annoying. You know why -- of course - I already opted in once. Why are you asking me [LAUGHS] again sort of thing.

JAD ABUMRAD: Another side-effect of MAPS' war on spam is friendly fire. For example, Chip Sprickman's dad was using a cable modem he got through Verizon to try and e-mail his son.

CHIP SPRICKMAN: I got a call from my dad saying hey did you get my e-mail, and-- I'm like no, no -- and I'm like oh wait, let me - let me look in my spam folders. And-- I looked and a couple of Verizon's outgoing mail servers were blocked.

JAD ABUMRAD: Nonetheless it's a price Chip says he's willing to pay. And for right now it remains his decision.

CHIP SPRICKMAN: I mean like the, the thing that really got me is like, you know, I, I was at home on, on the 11th, and like in the midst of like all that's going on on that day I'm still seeing make-money fast [LAUGHS] and then in the past couple of weeks I've been seeing like spam for anthrax cure, [LAUGHS] and it's just like they don't stop!

JAD ABUMRAD: Post 9/11, Congress has put off considering anti-spam measures, [MEN'S CHOIR SINGING ANTI-SPAM SONG UNDER] but just imagine how that debate would shake the august halls of Congress. For On the Media, I'm Jad Abumrad.