CAN-SPAM Act Update -Is Spam Here to Stay, or Will it Eventually Diminish or Go Away?

In previous articles, we have reported on the ever-growing problem of spam (unsolicited, commercial e-mail messages) and the efforts being made on the technological, legislative and litigation fronts to reduce the spam problem. Since becoming effective on January 1, 2004, the federal "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003," commonly known as the CAN-SPAM Act, has not been very successful in stemming the rising tide of spam. If you are an e-mail user, you are probably receiving just as many, and perhaps even more, spam messages each day this year than you were receiving each day last year. According to Symantac, spam is up from 58% of all e-mail to 65% of all e-mail since the CAN-SPAM Act was enacted. Moreover, according to JupiterResearch, the majority of e-mail advertisers are not in full compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. For example, JupiterResearch reported that 64 percent of the tracked leading e-mail marketers were not complying with