A summit on spam got underway Thursday in response to a Federal Trade Commission suggestion last month that bulk emailers and consumer groups to try to resolve their differences before the government starts regulating marketing practices on the Net.
"It's going to be a very open process," said Shabbir Safdar, founder of the Voters Telecommunication Watch and a leading opponent of spam. The meeting was closed to the public and press.
Those who made it to the table at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington represented all sides of the spam issue, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Microsoft, the Cato Institute, IBM, Netcom and other Internet service providers, United Adult Sites, the Direct Marketing Association, and the granddaddy of spam, Cyber Promotions founder Sanford Wallace.
At issue is the rising tide of junk email on the Net. Some argue that the practice is not just an annoying breach of netiquette, but a violation of privacy.
ISPs say that consumers pay the costs of the unsolicited email - in ISP employee time to weed them out and in fees for connection time to receive the messages. Spam proponents say that, in a free market, they have as much right to send unsolicited bulk email as other marketers do to send junk snailmail.
Participants said Thursday's summit ranged well past the issue of spam in all its flavors to meta-issues of free commercial speech, legitimate marketing techniques in electronic commerce, and even the cost structure of the Net.
"We're trying to address privacy issues, speech issues, and cost issues," said Deirdre Mulligan, staff counsel for the CDT. "I don't think there will be one solution."
The meeting, the first in a series planned for the next six months or so, did not result in adoption of formal action items. No date has been set for the next session.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering two bills that would curb spam - one that would expand a bill banning unsolicited faxes to cover email, and another that would require labeling the email as commercial. And the Nevada Legislature recently passed an anti-spam bill that requires a way for email recipients to opt out and that spammers correctly identify themselves. Often, spammers use dummy return addresses and pseudonyms to prevent ISPs from slamming the door in their faces.
