Going after the spammers!
Published on April 28, 2004 By Larry Kuperman In Current Events
Four alleged spammers have been arrested in Detroit for violations of the Federal Government's new "can spam" law.

The four men stand accused of sending out a million spam e-mails for their weight loss product that is variously known as AIT Herbal, Avatar Nutrition, Phoenix Avatar and other names.

According to the Federal Trade Commission over 10,000 complaints of unwanted e-mails from the company had been received in their offices. The e-mails violated the new Federal law which went into effect January 1st of this year, by not including an unsubscribe mechanism.

For years I have maintained that the only way to stop spam is to go after the companies that use it as a marketing tool. Companies are reasonable for the people and methods used to sell their products.

Simply requiring that e-mails have an unsubscibe mechanism is not enough, but it is a start. We also need to make sure that when you unsubscibe from one list, your name and validitated email is not sold to other spammers.

Good for the FTC!

Comments
on Apr 29, 2004
Hooray! As you said, a step in the right direction. It's only right that the companies behind are held responsible for this annoying practise.