SPAM, a few years back was merely considered a nuisance but now it is a major cause of concern among many. Junk mail has become a major problem,studies have indicated it makes up for as much as 50% to 70% of all email. This is up from 7% in 2001.Indian companies are spending millions of dollars on anti spam e mail technologies in an effort to minimize the impact of spam[1].
$ 8.9 billion is the loss incurred by US corporations in the year 2002 solely due to spamming[2] . Spam[3] is defined as Unsolicited Bulk E-Mail (UBE) or Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (UCE), often of a commercial nature, sent indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups; junk e-mail .In simple terms “spam” mails are e-mail’s sent in bulk and most of such mails are advertisements. The main reason that spam has achieved such a devilish status is because it is used for advertising products, get-rich-quick schemes and other similar fraudulent schemes. Spam is trouble maker not only for the recipients of the message but it also causes hardship on the Internet system and Internet service providers as the costs, such as transmission costs etc, are borne by the carriers and recipients of the messages. Internet usage is at a rise in India, and so is the need for a legislation governing SPAM.
Negative Impact of Spam
The negative impacts of spam are not few but many and these are:
1. The messages so sent as spam are deceitful and are either partly or are completely fraudulent.
2. The resources which do not belong to spammers are used by them. When spam is sent through intermediate systems so as to avoid the blocks that many systems have placed, the intermediate systems networks and the disks get laden with unwanted spam.
3. The content of spam is another issue of concern. Spam mails are usually mails promoting dubious ventures and messages which contain sexually descriptive material.
4. Spam also causes a significant proportion of e-mail traffic .It is so because spam consumes large amount of network bandwidth, memory, storage space, and other resources. The Internet users and system administrators spend a lot of time in reading, deleting, filtering, and blocking spam.
5. The spammers also tap into Simple Mail Transfer Protocol[4] (SMTP) Servers and direct them to send copies of a message to a long list of recipients.
Dealing with Spam
Technical mechanisms are used to deal with the menace of spam. These mechanisms are usually implemented by individual Internet users, ISP's and other destination operators, as well as by various third parties, some of which specialize in battling spam and a few are [5]
1. End User Filtering and Collaborative Filtering[6]
End User filtering entails the recipient simply ignoring unwanted messages while collaborative filtering consists of filtering done by Internet Service Providers (ISP) and proxy filtering services like Brightmail.
2. Blocking[7]
Blocking involves enabling destination operators to refuse delivery of spam. Many databases sometimes referred to as blacklists or "blackhole lists," list Internet hosts frequented by spammers. Destination operators can use these databases to identify and refuse delivery of selected incoming messages.
3. Hiding from Spammers[8]
This process involves concealing e-mail addresses by the recipients thus making harder for the spammers.
4. Opting Out[9]
This procedure involves requesting the spammer to remove the recipient from the mailing list. Of all the measures stated above this is the most ineffective as spammers almost never remove a mail address from their mailing lists.
The technical approaches so being used have not been much successful in eradication of spam and one of the main reason for the same is the inherent openness of the Internet and e-mail protocols. Technical approaches have certain harmful effects on legitimate communications also as blocking e-mail traffic from a spam friendly site often means blocking a great deal of legitimate email[10].
Legal methods
US ,the European Union and a few other countries have enacted anti-spam legislation. Australia which contributes to about 16% of the total spam in the world has the most stringent spam laws under which spammers may be fined up to $1.1 million a day[11]. Although anti-spam legislations are found all over the world, the methods of combating spam are virtually similar and they are :
1. Prohibition
2. Enforcement of Anti-Spam policies
3. Opt-out clause
4. Other Statutory Provisions
5. Enforcement Mechanisms
The number of anti-spam legislations passed all over the world and the penalty given to these spammers are clear evidence of the fact that the International Community has recognized the menace caused by the spam and are ready to take all possible steps to fight it effectively.
India lacks a legislation to govern spam .IT Act of 2000 does not deal with the issue of “spamming” at all. It merely refers to punishment given to a person, who after having secured access to any electronic material without the consent of the person concerned, discloses such electronic material to any other person[12]. Spamming is not considered in the Act[13]. The Delhi High Court acknowledged the absence of appropriate legislation concerning spam in a recent case wherein Tata Sons Ltd and its subsidiary Panatone Finwest Ltd filed a suit against McCoy Infosystems Pvt Ltd for transmission of spam. It was held that in the absence of statutory protection to check spam mails on Internet, the traditional tort law principles of trespass to goods as well as law of nuisance would have to be used[14]. Noted IT expert Mr. Praveen Dalal is of the view that spamming can be treated as violation of privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution and can also be brought under nuisance and trespass under the Indian Penal Code[15].
Conclusion
Internet users are growing in India and so is the number of junk e mail received by people everyday. It is the need of the hour to take all essential measures so that spam does not become a problem of gigantic proportions in India .With the establishment of the Indian arm of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mails (an International Organization against spam) some efforts are being made to combat the spam menace[16]. But the absence of a legislation in this regard is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
[1] http://www.spambutcher.com/misc/1.html
[2] lawspace2.lib.uct.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2165/.../Lottersberger+2003.pdf
[3] http://www.answers.com/topic/spam
[4] SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving e-mail. However, since it is limited in its ability to queue messages at the receiving end, it is usually used with one of two other protocols, POP3 or IMAP, that let the user save messages in a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server. In other words, users typically use a program that uses SMTP for sending e-mail and either POP3 or IMAP for receiving e-mail. On Unix-based systems, sendmail is the most widely-used SMTP server for e-mail. A commercial package, Sendmail, includes a POP3 server. Microsoft Exchange includes an SMTP server and can also be set up to include POP3 support. SMTP usually is implemented to operate over Internet port 25. An alternative to SMTP that is widely used in Europe is X.400. Many mail servers now support Extended Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (ESMTP), which allows multimedia files to be delivered as e-mail.
[5] citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.7023&rep...
[6] www.cisco.com/web/solutions/.../C11-484492-00_Filtering_wp.pdf -
[7] www.sans.org/security-resources/vendor.../directories.php?.
[8] csarven.ca/hiding-email-addresses
[9] opt-out.cdt.org/
[10] www.cisco.com/web/about/.../ipj.../anti-spam_efforts.html -
[11] www.vircom.ch/Can_Laws_Block_Spam.pdf
[12] www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/informationtechnologyact/informationtechnologyact.htm
[13] www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/informationtechnologyact/informationtechnologyact.htm
[14] http://www.legalservicesindia.com/articles/spamli.htm
[15] http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2008/09/tk-spams-and-biopiracy-axil-of-evil.html
[16] www.cauce.org/
1 comment:
Fascinating online journal. You should can give more insights about it. Much appreciated you.
Online Trademark Filing India | Trademark Application in India
Post a Comment