On June 15, the Federal Trade Commission told Congress that a national Do Not E-mail list is not feasible at this time.
In deciding that a secure Do Not E-mail list is not possible, the regulators at the FTC made the right choice. A list of valid e-mail addresses would be a veritable spam bonanza, too tempting for hackers to ignore.
IT managers dont have to worry (at least for now) about checking a national Do Not E-mail list when generating an e-mail campaign. However, companies must still maintain an internal unsubscribe list and must continue to honor the Do Not E-mail clause of the CAN-SPAM Act.
IT managers should keep an eye on authentication and reputation services that will likely form the backbone of future anti-spam measures. One product that is worth checking out is LashBacks namesake software, which costs $3.99 per month per user in-box, or $29.99 per year. In a nutshell, users highlight spam, click a button and e-mail is deleted. A note is sent to LashBack, and LashBack handles the unsubscribe.
Like CAN-SPAMs Do Not E-mail clause, LashBack will become more practical when authentication systems can accurately tie sender identity to e-mail messages. (DigiPortals ChoiceMail, reviewed here, provides such capabilities.) Until then, forged headers and faulty unsubscribe links will hamper efforts to quell the rise of spam.
More information about LashBack is at www.lashback.com.
Be sure to add our eWEEK.com messaging and collaboration news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page