Winning the battles, losing the war

The FTC is a touch too self-congratulatory over spam; it's catching spammers but for every one it takes two more spring up to take over.

 

CAN-SPAM was a start and the action taken against Alan Ralsky (although I preferred the direct action route) has made spammers resident in the US to either shut up shop or take a much lower profile. I look forward to more of these, but doubt they are going to cope with the flood of spam many mailboxes receive daily.

 

But as any economist will tell you if profits are high and demand is strong then supply rises to meet demand. A

US

spammer drops out, then the spam users switch to suppliers in the Far East or

Europe

.

 

Going after the spammers is only half the battle. We need to go after the people using the spam – the herbal Viagra dealers, mail order universities and credit agencies. We could cut some of the spam off at the source, although we'll never be entirely free of it.