A national registry of consumer e-mail addresses would make things easier for spammers and could actually increase the total amount of spam, the Federal Trade Commission has concluded.
As part of the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which became law in January, the FTC was mandated to report on the feasibility of establishing a National Do Not E-Mail Registry, similar to the wildly successful Do-Not-Call registry. Today, the FTC published its report, which concluded the idea is a wash.
"We learned that when it comes down to it, consumers will be spammed if we do a registry and spammed if we do not," FTC Chairman Timothy Muris told reporters at a press conference today. "Spammers would ignore the law," Muris said. "Even worse, they'd use the registry as a source of valid -- and spammable -- addresses. It would be virtually impossible to stop them."
According to the report, a national registry would fail to reduce the amount of spam consumers receive, might increase it, and could not be enforced effectively.
Instead, the FTC recommended that private industry, including ISPs, e-mail marketers, e-mail service providers and software companies, should work together to form a standard for e-mail authentication that would prevent spammers from hiding their tracks and evading Internet service providers' anti-spam filters and law enforcement.
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