SpamLaws News

Utah Senate President Threatening Spam Suit
Utah Senate President Threatening Spam Suit Utah's Senate President is threatening to sue disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson over the unsolicited sending of emails. Thompson, who made a name for himself as a lawyer blaming violent acts on violent video games, has spent his post-lawyer years attempting to convince states to pass anti-violent video game laws. Utah, the only state who considered passing the bill, eventually vetoed it but this has not stopped Thompson from emailing members of the Utah Senate in order to change their minds. Now the president of the Utah Senate is threatening to sue Thompson under the CAN-SPAM anti-spam law and wrote Thompson saying,"I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed I will turn you over to the AG for legal action."

What is Phishing?

Although you have most likely heard the term quite often, you may not be familiar with the prevalence of phishing, which has become one of the fastest growing crimes on the internet. What is phishing? In simple terms, it’s a scam employed by an individual attempting to persuade would-be victims into providing sensitive information. Phishing uses a combination of social engineering and technical subterfuge to lure the unsuspecting into financial ruin.

This exploit originates via email and typically requests account information, such as usernames or passwords, a situation that could easily lead to identity theft. According to the United States Federal Trade Commission, nearly 255,000 cases of identity theft were reported in 2003, most of them attributed to the crime of phishing.

Institutions victimized by phishing scams
Phishing is not only detrimental to the recipient, but the company who is being impersonated as well. Institutions, such as Comerica and Wells Fargo, and services like PayPal can certainly attest as their brand names have been used in various scams. Other common targets include Barclays Bank, once branded BarcPhish by the prominent security vendor McAfee, eBay and even smaller financial institutions such as LaSalle Bank and Sky Financial. Within a short time, the damage inflicted by phishers has made consumers very cautious of organizations that were once trusted. For this reason, business leaders and consumers alike are practicing awareness to prevent this crime.

Anti-phishing tactics to employ
Now that we’ve answered the question of what is phishing, it’s time to learn what can be done to prevent it. When you consider the fact that spam remains a huge problem, putting a complete halt to these fraudulent emails seems almost impossible. Several companies who have been targeted tend to focus more on educating consumers on how to observe the warning signs and detect the crime before it is seen to fruition. They go as far as explaining how a fraudulent message might appear when conducting an email search and comparing it to what the consumer should expect from the institution.

Because of the widespread exploitation, some have even made policies where they’ve eliminated email communications completely, relying on snail mail to communicate with customers. Other companies simply encourage customers not to disclose sensitive details, such as bank account numbers and passwords, in an email message.

In-house education on anti-phishing is important as well. Phishers rely on more than social engineering tactics, as they often deploy keystroke loggers and other malicious software to victimize unknowing employees. This is a factor that poses a threat in the home or office environment, something could easily lead to breaches of confidential corporate data.

Whether your inbox or company has been targeted or not, it is important to make yourself familiar with all the red flags that indicate phishing. Keep in mind that on the surface, most of these emails are well designed and look as if they are sent by legitimate companies. They’ll come bearing descriptions that sound official and logos to persuade you. Phishers even create websites that look just as good, if not better than the one they are impersonating.

So what is phishing? It’s a serious crime you certainly want to avoid. Some have suggested reporting phishing to the company that supposedly sent it to prove authenticity. Try to find the email address of the company and make sure it is legitimate. The one thing you don’t want to do is provide your personal information or click a link that may send you to a rogue website.

Legal aspects and implications of e-mail marketing and related spam laws

Ecommerce can be best described as a marketplace on the internet, which comprises distributing, marketing, buying, selling, and servicing of products or services through electronic systems such as internet or other computer networks. It can be also viewed as an electronic business application targeted at commercial transactions involving electronic funds transfer, e-marketing, supply chain management, online marketing, online transaction processing, automated inventory management, electronic data interchange, and automated data collection systems.

Ecommerce is indeed the most efficient and convenient mode of transactions nowadays, but this business needs strict compliance with laws and related legalities, particularly dealing with marketing, because you are dealing with others’ money.

If you in the ecommerce business, then strictly avoid fraudulent promotions, otherwise you could be charged for spamming under the new CAN-SPAM Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush on December 16; the Act is a federal initiative designed to regulate the most harmful and annoying practices of spammers. Violation of the Act can result in the following consequences:

* Revenue losses and damage of reputation
* Major e-mail service providers such as AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo! filtering your messages to block them
* ISP may shut down your e-mail account
* Web host may shut down your web site
* Under the new federal CAN-SPAM Act, you can be fined (up to $2 million) or sentenced to jail (up to five years)

Therefore honestly promote a legitimate business to sell real and valuable products or services.

Operate a legitimate business

Do not use falsifying headers to force your way into peoples’ inboxes. Avoid using deceptive subject lines, hijacking other peoples’ e-mail accounts or computers to send spam, creating e-mail or IP addresses specifically to send spam, and sending unsolicited e-mail with sexual content and emails to people who have requested to be removed from your list. These are malicious ways of forcing messages into the inboxes of people who don’t want them, which are not only annoying but are illegal and unprofitable.

Plan responsible e-mail promotions

Always obtain permission from the target users before sending them emails. A user must never get a mail that he is not expecting. Avoid buying or renting email lists as they do not promise validity and at times you end up paying for the addresses that are invalid. If you buy email lists, find out how those addresses were collected. If people in your purchased list have not agreed to receive email related to promotion or advertisements, you might land into the troubled waters.

Be very careful while choosing a subject line; it should be self-explanatory about the content within the email. Mention the real return address and place a functional ‘unsubscribe’ link in all the emails. If you have an exhaustive list of emails you will have to seek professional help to install an ASP or any other suitable program to manage ‘opt-ins’ and ‘unsubscribe’ requests. You must send commercial or promotional emails/ newsletters through you’re your company’s official email address.