Isaac Lopez Rhetoric Apr. 16, 2002 Internet Pollution           Some years ago, spam or electronic mail advertising was welcomed in most e-mail accounts; it was just usual and ordinary propaganda, similar to direct mail advertisements. Now, as the Internet has developed, spam has increased in size and grown in content variety. Advertising over the Internet has changed very much, but it seems, according to some users, it has changed for worse. And the people who can do something to fix the problem seem to think it is someone else's responsibility. Furthermore, defendants of free speech, business organizations, and free trade groups, among others, claim advertising should be left alone, and the market should regulate itself. But market self-regulation is not working, and state's laws alone are not efficient enough to control the problem. For good use of the Internet, spam must be eliminated by implementing wise federal laws.           One of the most serious problems with spam is that some of it is porn advertisement. Some people find porn spam highly offensive. And no matter what kind of Internet user one is, anyone can get porn spam. Shirley Duglin Kennedy said of  recipients, "a bit worrisome . . . is that none of these people are particularly heavy Internet users. These aren't folks who spend hours online . . . As a matter of fact, they are all dial-up users," referring to the people who get porn spam and complain to her (20). These and many other users are embarrassed to open their own e-mail accounts in front of strangers, relatives, and even friends because of porn spam.  Nevertheless, many libertarians claim it would be a violation of civil liberties if porn spam would be banned. But even if it is not explicitly written in the Constitution, one is free to express whatever one wants as long as it does not harm others. Jay Nordlinger writes about what he has seen: "This isn't nice porn; it isn't pretty ladies and men posing on European beaches. It's sick stuff, with a very heavy emphasis on children, incest, and bestiality" (36). Stephen H. Wildstrom says about the people who have written to him about porn spam, "Many readers noted that they never receive pornographic postal mail or telephone solicitations and surmised [federal] law is the reason."           Another problem is that spam is growing so much that it is capable of clogging the networks. Spammers send thousands of junk e-mail to be spread over the Internet and into users' e-mail accounts; sometimes, even multiples of the same spam arrive to the same mailboxes but with different subject titles, a trick often used by spammers to pass undetected through filters. So much spam is being sent that a regular Internet user's e-mail account can be flooded with hundreds of spam within one month. Nordlinger agrees, "Your porn and, again, spam generally can get so bad, you quit your account and acquire a new one. But the new one, too, can quickly get spoiled and overrun with spam" (38).           The overgrowing spam is making Internet connections and communications inefficient. There is limited space for data to flow over the Internet, and spam is taking much of it, making connections, and data flow, very slow. Moreover, it uses storage space: server space, personal computer space, and the net space. There is so much spam that e-mail servers have implemented filters, junk folders, blockers, and space monitors. However, opponents of e-mail advertisement legislation say users already have methods and tools to control spam. Nevertheless, filters are of little help; there is so much spam it can clog the net, causing communications to slow down, and in some cases to crash networks. The less space servers and personal computers have, the slower and more prone to errors they become. Clyde Wayne Crews admits, "Many ISPs like the idea of legislation to control spam because large amounts of spam can hang up smaller networks that simply can't absorb [spam] traffic."           Strong federal anti-spam legislation is needed because spam is usually fraudulent. Usually, spammers do not ask permission from users to get their e-mail addresses; they violate users' privacy. They use automatic programs that collect e-mail addresses from the Internet and add them to their own mailing lists. Then, they buy, sell or exchange e-mail address lists without considering users' privacy. Later, the same program that harvested the e-mail addresses sends spam messages as if users were eager to receive and read them. Commonly, spammers use tricks to make their messages pass through ISPs' filters, and blockers. For example, they attach varying serial numbers to the end of each subject title because ISPs have programs that detect and block passage to groups of e-mail with repeated subject titles. And if that is not enough, they can also disguise their content with confusing and sometimes misspelled subject titles like "I received your message," "I'll see ya at work," "Hi, how you been," "I missed your call," and so on. When people watch TV or listen the radio, they have the option to turn them off, or change the channel or station, but spam arrives with no warning. It arrives confident that people are interested in it, wasting many people's time.           Internet users already spend quite a bit of time going through legitimate e-mail, but with spam, they also lose part of their lives going through pure junk e-mail. To prevent an e-mail account from getting full, some regular Internet users have more than one account: one for work, one for personal letters, and one for online registrations. Thus, they waste much more time than they would having only one account. Those people and other Internet users with only one account could set up and maintain filters and e-mail blockers to save some time. However, filters seldom work perfectly, notices Kennedy: "Filtering tools can be tricky to set up and tend to be ham-handed. You really do need to check your delete folder before permanently trashing the contents to make sure something important didn't get caught inadvertently" (20). Fewer and fewer people are reading e-mail advertisements; they are busier trying to delete them.           Anti-spam legislation will help legitimate companies because spam is taking away users' interest and trust in the e-market. Crews thinks about the effect of spam law: "Legitimate companies will end up being targeted, and, of those, small business will suffer the most." It is true that legislation will affect legitimate advertising, but for good; it is spam that affects the market negatively. Donna Hoffman, a professor and director of the e-commerce concentration at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management said, "The increase in spam has decreased the overall effectiveness of e-mail marketing. That trend is clear. Consumers are deleting it before they read it" (qtd. in Kennedy).           Some people would claim state governments already impose solutions for the unsolicited e-mail problem. Some states, by law, require that all e-mail advertising provide an opt-out option, like an Internet address or e-mail account from which one can unsubscribe from marketers' mailing lists. Although some marketers do provide an opt-out option to let users remove themselves from their mailing lists, they are rarely real. Some unsubscribe addresses are linked to non-existent pages or non-existent e-mail addresses. Likewise, the sender e-mail address is fraudulent, so there is no one to claim to. Other unsubscribe addresses open a new window where one is supposed to type the e-mail address to unsubscribe, but instead, it collects the e-mail address entered and sends it to another mailing list or uses it to see if the spammer program is still working.           Wildstrom reasons, "Laws are generally ineffective because states may not regulate interstate commerce." Anti-spam activists have claimed a strong and efficient federal anti-spam law is necessary because many states have implemented their own anti-spam laws, but they have proven to be ineffective. There are many people of good will who want to attack the problem. Many individual ISPs have acted, but, uncoordinated, they accomplish little. Solutions for the spam problem are there, but the power of a nation is needed to implement them because the problem is international. Rom Mattesich, chief technical office of GlobalXchange Communications in Miami said, "To stem the tide requires a coordinated legal, political, economic, and technical assault of multinational proportions" (qtd. in Wildstrom). Divided by states, the nation is weak against spam, but united, the nation can start the world battle against it.           Businesses should have the right to advertise themselves or their products over the Internet, but it should be in an orderly and proper way. Businesses that send spam, conscious or not, harm the market and Internet users themselves. John C. Dvorak concludes the only people who are making money in the e-business are the people who sell the mailing lists and the "spamming" systems. E-businesses host most free services on the Internet; thus, to maintain it that way, all the nation should work together to get rid of spam and develop efficient electronic advertisement. Sources Cited Crews, Clyde Wayne. "Why Canning Spam Is a Bad Idea." Policy Analysis 408 (2001). 2           Apr. 2002 <http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-408es.html>. Dvorak, John C. "Digging Spam" PC Magazine 12 Feb. 2002: 59. Kennedy, Shirley Duglin. "Spam I Am!  The Proliferation of Junk E-Mail." Internet Today           Feb. 2002: 20-21. Nordlinger, Jay. "Spam Tastes Gross." National Review 25 Feb. 2002: 36-38. Wildstrom, Stephen H. "Can Anyone Put a Lid On Porno Spam?" Business Week 18 Mar.           2002: 24.