Former FTC commissioner Christine Varney says every American who went online for the first time this Christmas is going to get spam.
Why is spam such a problem? According to Varney, it's partly because there is a network of data thieves who steal personal information and sell it on the Internet black market.
Spam, or unsolicited junk email, has been a problem for online users for as long as there have been inboxes. Netizens have to keep track of their personal data online and be aware that companies' privacy policies could include the ability to sell names and addresses to others for marketing purposes.
"Unfortunately, there is such a large black market industry right now of [people] -- by hook or by crook -- getting a hold of names, of emails," she said. "There are an awful lot of people who're collecting information without the knowledge of the consumer, selling it, stealing it, and it's finding its way around."
Varney appeared on a panel at the Internet Content Coalition's second annual forum Monday in San Francisco. Other participants, including Ira Magaziner, former White House adviser on Net policy, spoke on upcoming legislative Net issues.
Varney said her husband was accidentally sent a list of about 6,000 businesses on the Net that -- if the email is to be believed -- "have just spent more than X amount on the Net." Her husband sells goods online.
"There is a network of, in this instance, hackers who have targeted a specific market who are going in stealing names [and] reselling [them] on the Net," she said.
Varney, a lawyer, is now in private practice and represents Netscape in the US v. Microsoft antitrust trial and in the AOL-Netscape merger. Attempts to reach Varney for this story were unsuccessful.
