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| State ISPs help Wilson craft anti - spam bill |
February 27, 2001 |
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New Mexico`s Internet community is excited about a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson designed to stop unwanted junk e-mail.
New Mexico businesses helped Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, shape the Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail Act of 2001, which sets rules and fines for anyone sending unwanted e-mail. It was introduced in the House this month.
"A lot of local input went into this bill," Wilson said. "I couldn`t have done it without the help of New Mexico`s Internet community."
According to a study by the European Union Commission, junk e-mail costs Internet subscribers worldwide about $9.4 billion in connection costs every year. In New Mexico, it is estimated to cost -- at the very least -- $500,000 a year, said Mark Costlow, co-owner of Southwest Cyberport, an Albuquerque Internet service provider.
"Conservatively, we as a company spend $200 to $300 a day to deal with spam (the slang term for junk e-mail)," Costlow said. "I`m sure it`s more than that. It costs us in terms of equipment, technician time, customer service time. It wastes bandwidth and delays the time in which e-mails are received. We`ve spent two to three times more on equipment to deal with it than we would have had to otherwise."
The bill would require companies sending junk e-mails to use accurate return e-mail addresses. It would make it illegal for them to continue sending e-mail after they are told by customers to stop. And it would force unsolicited e-mails to be labeled.
"There`s a right to free speech on the Internet, but there`s no right to make you listen," Wilson said. "Junk e-mail is one of the most annoying things about the Internet, and it`s also one of the most costly things for ISPs and consumers."
ISPs have to spend money on equipment to filter spam e-mail. And filtering can be a difficult task, because companies don`t want to remove legitimate e-mail in the process.
"These companies get creative," said Jamii Corley, co-owner of Southwest Cyberport. "They do things deliberately so you can`t filter their mail out. If you`re a business, you don`t want to get rid of legitimate mail, so you have to waste the time to go through it."
Corley and Costlow said between September and December 2000, Southwest Cyberport caught a gigabyte of spam, which they think is about 15 percent of the actual amount of junk e-mail that went through the company.
"This is costly to all of us," said Jim Hall, chief operating officer of Albuquerque ISP Oso Grande Technologies. "One difference between this and junk mail is with this you have to pay for it -- through your time and ISP costs. Think about what would happen if every time you got a piece of junk mail in your mailbox, you had to pay for it."
Wilson`s bill would charge spamming companies $500 per instance or for actual damages from computer crashes and slowed business.
"I think what will happen from this is we won`t see a lot of enforcement, but we will see a significant reduction in junk e-mail," Wilson said.
Last year, a similar bill passed 471-1 in the House but was killed in the Senate. This year Wilson said she has been working with more than 60 bipartisan sponsors to make sure the bill passes in both chambers.
"I think this is a good and well-crafted bill," Wilson said. "I think it has a good chance of passing." |
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