CAN-SPAM - 1 Year Later

The CAN-SPAM act was passed 1 year ago - so it seems time to do (another) recap.

The short of it is - the law has had little to no effect on email spam. AOL has claimed a reduction in user complaints - but the exact reasons for this seem unclear. Advanced network based email filters may be playing a roll in this drop.

The spam filtering company MX Logic has conducted a study that indicates that the ratio of spam to legitimate email has increased by about 70%. That suggests a large upswing in the amount of unwanted email being sent over the last year.

There have been a number of high-profile lawsuits filed - some under CAN-SPAM, others using existing laws. There has even been one judgment awarding over $1 billion to a victimized ISP.

Still, more spam seems to be being sent each day. So far the only way for end users to attack the problem is to block spam email client-side with one of many available applications.

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