CAN-SPAM
Law Violations Continue At High Rate for Second Month in a Row,
According to Audiotrieve InBoxer Anti-spam Study
BOXBOROUGH, Mass. (BUSINESSWIRE) February 10,
2004 — CAN-SPAM,
the law intended to reduce junk email, had little effect on the nation's
email Inboxes for the second month in a row, according to a study conducted
this weekend by Audiotrieve, the makers of InBoxer anti-spam filters
(http://www.inboxer.com).
More than 86 percent of the spam messages studied violated at least
one aspect of the CAN-SPAM law and most violated
almost all of the provisions. This performance is only a slight improvement
over the 90 percent non-compliance rate found in the January InBoxer
study.
"CAN-SPAM is failing to stop the plague of unwanted email messages.
The violations are so blatant and pervasive that it appears that spammers
are not worried about being caught," said Roger Matus, Chief
Executive of Audiotrieve.
"These ongoing spam attacks and recent
outbreaks of new viruses like MyDoom, prove that companies and individuals
still need to take strong measures to protect their email accounts."
Audiotrieve collected email messages using so-called "honey pot" accounts
on February 6-8, 2004. Approximately 1,000 junk e-mail messages were
analyzed to identify the compliant messages which contained an email
address, relevant subject line, a physical address, and the unsubscribe
information required by the law that went into effect on January 1.
Honey-pot accounts are email accounts designed to attract spam, but
are not in use by any individual. Therefore, messages sent to these
accounts cannot be intended for a known person.
Only 143 of the 1040 messages analyzed contained the information required
by CAN-SPAM. Audiotrieve did not try to verify that the required physical
addresses were correct or whether taking the action required to unsubscribe
would work. Therefore, the non-compliance rate could be even higher.
For the first time, CAN-SPAM compliance was used by some companies
as a way to show that they are legitimate. Several of the compliant
messages contained a colorful graphic with a phrase such as "We
are fully compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003."
About Audiotrieve and InBoxer
Audiotrieve, LLC (www.audiotrieve.com, www.inboxer.com)
makes email filters, including anti-spam filters, under the InBoxer brand. INBOXER
is a trademark and AUDIOTRIEVE is a U.S. registered trademark of Audiotrieve, LLC.
A 21 day free trial of InBoxer is available from http://www.inboxer.com.
InBoxer costs $39.95.
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