Anonymous writes "With recent CAN-SPAM and other international anti-spam legislation attempts, millions of business mailboxes are wide open for spammers to attack

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Montreal, March 1, 2004 - Montreal-based Vircom, developer of Modus secure messaging solutions, today announced it has observed a 25% increase in the amount of business-to-business unsolicited e-mails since the beginning of the year.

Vircom's Spambuster Team, which monitors and analyzes the flow of spam on the Internet, reported this rise in B2B spam as the most significant change in the complexity of spam since the beginning of 2004.

I knew we would see some changes in the types of spam circulating on the Internet since CAN-SPAM came into effect on the first of January, says Marc Chouinard, lead of Vircom's Spambuster Team. However, I did not think that we would see such dramatic increases in so short a period of time.

Sylvain Durocher, President and founder of Vircom is not surprised with the increase of business- to-business spam. Spammers are finding loopholes in anti-spam legislations and are exploiting these limitations, says Durocher. When you combine these flawed laws with how inexpensive spam is to send, it is no surprise that spam is constantly increasing.

Anti-Spam Regulations

Both the United States and the United Kingdom have recently implemented anti-spam legislation to curb the tide of spam. These laws have created a fire storm of controversy over their potential effectiveness in stopping spam.

CAN-SPAM

Critics of the United States CAN-SPAM Act site its opt-out mechanism as the chief flaw, and that this flaw gives spammers the right to spam. The opt-out approach enables spammers to e-mail recipients until the recipient asks them to stop. The big concern with this is that it allows the spammer to dictate what steps recipients must be taken to get off the list, including:
• Replying to an opt-out email address or other Internet-based mechanism.
• Forcing the recipient to go to the spammer's website where they will have to search the site in order to find the opt-out mechanism.
• Forcing the recipient to opt-out via a list or menu from which the recipient must choose the specific types of commercial electronic mail messages the recipient wishes to receive or does not want to receive from the sender.
The EC Directive

The United Kingdom's EC Directive has been criticized for its exclusion of business-to-business spam. According to Spamhaus, a leading anti-spam group, Britain has disappointed the internet community by actually legalizing the spamming of British businesses, said a Spamhaus statement. From 11 December it will be legal to send spam to the millions of hapless employees of British businesses. Britain's firms will continue to suffer the onslaught of ever more spam, now from spammers claiming legality.

Economics of spam

Whereas the cost associated with other mass marketing techniques such as bulk mailing and telephone marketing are tangible, the economics of bulk commercial e-mails indicates that it is cheap and simple to send millions of messages in a very short period of time. Considering the added fact that the Internet is an essential part of most people's daily life, the worldwide web has become the prime channel for spammers.

According to Osterman Research, the economic cost of spam is $1,400 a year for every enterprise e-mail user.

About spam legislation

Complete information on anti-spam legislation as well as unbiased opinions from 5 international anti-spam experts are presented in the recent Vircom study Can Laws Block Spam? available at http://www.vircom.com/Products/Modus3/Whitepapers.asp

About Vircom

Since 1994, Vircom has been specializing in advanced Internet infrastructure and secure messaging solutions for the ever-evolving needs of both its ISP and corporate clients. Vircom has become an undeniable force in the anti-spam market with its mature and powerful Modus™ anti-spam technology. With offices in Canada and Europe, Vircom has become a leading player in the secure messaging industry.

Contact Information

François Bourdeau
Marketing Manager
Phone: 514.845.1666 x256
[email protected]





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