Newspapers Groan Under Weight Of Spam

By: Eric Wolferman Digital Input Column from the June 24 issue of E&P

My father used to say that long after all other species were extinct, cockroaches would continue to crawl the Earth. The persistence and adaptability of these pests make them nearly indestructible. It's the same image I have today of spam e-mail.

Spam messages have infested our e-mail systems like roaches in a feeding frenzy. They show up at all times of the day and night, in all kinds of formats, and every attempt to fumigate them seems to fail. Often, they come back stronger and more resistant than before. They have become the scourge of the Internet.

Generally, spam is defined as unsolicited commercial e-mail. But at times it goes well beyond the annoyance of receiving junk mail. Often, the material that shows up has obscene or pornographic content, which can be very offensive to some. It also tends to clog valuable network resources.

Attempts to curb spam present special challenges for newspapers. Many publishers use telemarketing to sell subscriptions, which some argue is the oral equivalent of spam. And our industry is of course a staunch defender of the First Amendment, which some say is violated by efforts to limit spam messages. But as end-users, few can dispute that unsolicited e-mail -- whether it is an offer to share in a Nigerian banking scheme or a pitch for Viagra -- is maddening.

In 2000, the average business e-mail user received three spam messages a day. In 2003, that number will grow to 40. According to Ferris Research, we'll each waste 15 hours deleting e-mail next year, compared with 2.2 hours two years ago. That will cost the average business in the future $400 for each inbox. Individuals are expected to receive, on average, 1,800 pieces of unsolicited e-mail this year, according to Jupiter Research, an Internet research firm. By 2006, Jupiter expects that number to grow to more than 3,800.

Filters falter

The latest weapons in the war against spam are filters designed to screen out the junk. There are dozens of client-based packages and a growing number of services that will filter e-mail for an entire organization for a fee. But the filter approach is fraught with difficulties. To penetrate filters, inventive spammers use many tricks to disguise the origin of their messages. One of the most common is to "relay" the messages off the mail server of an innocent third party. Another is to forge the headers of messages, making it appear as though the message originated elsewhere.

We discovered another shoot-yourself-in-the-foot problem in our own operation. We engaged a company to screen spam coming into our e-mail servers from the outside world. The service worked pretty well. Actually, too well: our prepress department began complaining it was not receiving print advertisements sent via e-mail by our own advertisers.

AT&T Broadband, a major technology company itself, had a similar experience. It offered customers in Seattle a spam filter, but the technology snagged messages sent from AT&T, including one e-mail message alerting customers to a rate increase. Some former spam-filter advocates now think that the risk of losing mission-critical messages is too great to chance it. Others say it just doesn't work -- they still get plenty of junk mail.

The war against spam has been a no-win proposition, at least so far. As fast as companies come up with measures to block spammers, the spammers figure out a way to get around them.

About two dozen states have enacted laws to control spam, mainly by restricting misrepresentation in e-mail. Congress is considering legislation to restrict spam, but it hasn't gained much momentum. Even if a national anti-spam law were enacted, Internet experts say spammers will simply go offshore.

E-mail is a very cheap channel for marketers. Once you've sent the first spam message, there are no additional incremental costs for sending the next one -- or even the next 10 million. But it is also a collective drain on the network, imposing costs upon everyone: in slower service, crashed servers, lost opportunities, and time wasted downloading unwanted mail. The costs of spam are borne in greatest proportion by recipients.

There is a great deal of information on the Web about spam and how to fight it. One of the best sources is a site hosted by the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (http://www.cauce.org), a group advocating legislative solutions to the problem.

If you think that spam is not costing you money, try a handy "spam calculator" on the Web site of Computer Mail Services Inc. (http://www.cmsconnect.com/marketing/spamcalc.htm). As an example, a company of 2,000 e-mail users paid an average of $20 an hour, will burn nearly $65,000 in wasted employee time each year. And that's not spam.