New spam law, Jan. 7 2004

New U.S. spam law has little initial impact, Internet providers say

18:16 07Jan2004

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Offers for herbal Viagra and unbelievably low mortgage rates continue to clog Americans' e-mail inboxes, despite a new U.S. law that outlaws many "spam" messages, industry officials said Wednesday.

Online marketers continue to bombard users with millions of spam items that differ little in style and volume from those sent before the law took effect on Jan. 1, Internet providers said.

One prominent online marketer said he was sending out more bulk e-mail than ever.

"There's been no big shift, no big change in content or legitimacy," said Mary Youngblood, an abuse manager at EarthLink Inc.

Widespread outrage over unwanted bulk e-mail prompted Congress to pass the first nationwide anti-spam measure last year.

But even the law's most avid supporters have said it will be widely ignored if it is not aggressively enforced. So far, the law has failed to slow the torrent, Internet providers reported.

Overall e-mail volume dipped over the holidays as people spent less time in front of their computers but the proportion of spam remained constant, they said.

Officials at Verizon Communications and EarthLink said spam continued to account for roughly 55 percent of all the traffic coming into their networks.

The spam situation has likewise changed little at Yahoo Inc., a spokeswoman said.

Time Warner Inc.'s America Online, the nation's No. 1 Internet provider, said the law had inspired many spammers to route their traffic through computers in Asia so they would be harder to track down.

"There was a noticeable and distinct shift in spam traffic patterns that took place almost overnight," said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham.

Online marketer Scott Richter said he had altered the text of the hundreds of millions of messages he sends out daily to include his street address and a clear notice that the message is an advertisement, as required by the new law.

Richter said his company, Westminster, Colorado-based Optinrealbig.com, was doing more business than ever.

"We're doing fine," said Richter, who faces fraud charges in the states of New York and Washington.