Antispam Persuasions

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 06/12/97

Like a fool, I decided to print out all the messages I've received about my recent column on junk e-mail. Twenty minutes later, the pages were still squirming out of the laser printer. Now the pile of paper lies on my desk, fairly steaming with pent-up rage.

Based on previous experience, I thought my readers reserved their deepest loathing for Microsoft Corp. and all its works. Not so. Instead, you hold a special contempt for the people who ``spam'' your e-mail boxes with thousands of unwanted advertisements.

And some of you aren't too well-disposed toward me. Remember that I described two pieces of legislation aimed at curtailing spam. One, offered by Alaska's Republican Senator Frank H. Murkowski, would require an identifying tag on all e-mail ads. This law would also force Internet service providers to use blocking software on their mail servers, so that a customer could choose either to receive the ads or have them all discarded automatically.

Meanwhile, New Jersey Republican Representative Chris Smith simply wants to extend the federal law that bans unsolicited fax messages to cover e-mail as well. In short, a total ban on spam.

Smith's bill amounts to a ban on a particular form of speech. I'm sure it would pass constitutional muster - the courts have upheld the junk fax ban, after all. Still, I was attracted by the more restrained approach of the Murkowski bill.

But for a few of you, this wasn't restrained enough. A handful of live-free-or-die types demanded no Internet regulation at all. Here's Pat McHargue, a programmer in Sonoma, Calif., and former Libertarian Party candidate for Congress: ``Technology has a better answer, providing government doesn't get involved and squash it first,'' McHargue wrote. ``Give us all a break, and stop crying for the government to fix everything. They won't fix it - they can't! They can, however, screw it up.''

But such messages were outnumbered about 10 to 1 by supporters of spam restrictions. And most of these readers politely slapped me around for not backing the Smith spam ban. ``The Murkowski bill, while well-intentioned, is too lenient,'' wrote Ian Hayes, a network administrator in Santa Clara, Calif. ``The bill requires spammers to have the word `advertisement' in the subject header. This is analogous to a burglar being required to wear a bright Day-Glo jacket with the word `burglar' on it. It won't do anything to stop him.''

Indeed, the Murkowski bill would make matters worse, according to Chip Rosenthal, a computer consultant in Austin, Texas. That's because spammers would be free to keep on dumping e-mail onto the Internet in ever-growing quantities. Each service provider would spend thousands of dollars to set up filters to screen their customers' mail, but millions of useless e-mails would still be dumped onto the 'Net, slowing down service for everybody. ``By the time a mail message has been received and can be scanned for a tag,'' said Rosenthal, ``the damage has already been done.''

I responded to my critics with a feeble counterattack. Wouldn't the spammers give up and go away, when they saw that most spams were being dumped unread? Not hardly, replied the antispammers. Most junk mail is already being discarded, and the spammers grow bolder by the day. Merely automating the process will hardly discourage them.

A couple of you even made some powerful libertarian arguments in favor of a total spam ban. Mandatory filtering of e-mail messages is rather Big Brotherish, you noted. Will it be spam today, porno tomorrow? Besides, one way or another, the recipient pays for e-mail. So sending thousands of unwanted messages is actually a form of theft, and a violation of the victim's property rights. The fairest and least intrusive solution is a ban on spam.

All of a sudden, I find myself leaning toward the Smith approach. At the very least, my critics have persuaded me that Murkowski's approach isn't going to cut it. The cost of controlling junk e-mail should be borne by the spammers, not the spammees.

Hiawatha Bray is a member of the Globe staff. You can (and will!) send him electronic mail at bray@globe.com.