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It might not solve the problem, but perhaps you'll feel better to learn that your Internet Service Provider hates spam, too.

And it's probably working hard to eradicate or at least control it. Perhaps it's even the daily focus of someone with the job title "senior abuse administrator." That was one among the scores of ISP workers gathered for SpamCon 2001 in San Francisco recently.

Technical teams working behind the scenes at ISPs echo user complaints as they tell just how much they despise unsolicited e-mail, commonly known as spam. Some attended the conference wearing T-shirts covered in anti-spam slogans, discussing the technical, legal, and social effects of spam.

Clearing Networks, Consoling Customers

"Spam is definitely a problem for us," says Ava Pettit-Mountain, who works in the abuse department for the Boston telecommunications company RCN. "Just in terms of consumer complaints it's definitely got a chilling effect."

Although much of her job is dedicated to tracking down Internet hackers that go about their rogue business on RCN's cable and Internet service, Pettit-Mountain says she spends more than half of each day sorting through complaints and phone calls from customers angry over the junk mail that piles up in their in-boxes.

"A lot of customers--they want a magic button," she says. "We do have some mechanisms in place to block e-mail but obviously we have to be conservative about it."

Abuse departments at ISPs from Earthlink to UUNet Technologies offer similar disdain for the overwhelming problem created by mass e-mail marketing, which often is distributed for illegal or unethical purposes. Most attending SpamCon say few preventive measures are in place, and they all want answers.

"Technologists have always said, 'It's a problem that can be solved with technology.' End users have said, 'Let's sue spammers into oblivion.' I think it's none of the above," says Tom Geller, the director of SpamCon and founder of Suespammers.org. Solving the problem of spam, however, leaves most people stumped. The U.S. Congress has had little luck on the issue. The U.S. House of Representatives recently slimmed down a bill that would protect consumers against unsolicited bulk e-mail. A representative of the Federal Trade Commission, one of several government agencies charged with cracking down on spammers, says it too has limited resources. "We're not an agency that can set the laws," says Jennifer Mandigo, staff attorney with the FTC's consumer division. "But the FTC is ready to generally enforce whatever (Congress) passes."

Solutions by Technology and Talking?

Aside from legal remedies, technical solutions are available. At the conference, ClickVu demonstrated its e-mail management software, Spamex, which generates disposable e-mail addresses and forwards messages sent to those mail boxes to a user's main account. If too much spam comes to a disposable address, it can be eliminated. Unfortunately, because the software also sends messages under disposable names, it could work just as well for someone sending spam.

Other companies demonstrated filtering software that blocks e-mail messages at the inbox or before they enter an ISP's network. Postini showed its spam-blocking technology, which doubles as a messaging forwarding program. Brightmail detailed a similar blocking service, and a startup called Rockliffe demonstrated its mail server software that filters spam.

Despite the potential technical solutions, the issue is better fought by reaching the people who use direct e-mail marketing, says Ted Gavin, with Nachman Hays Consulting, who is helping draft antispam policy for the marketing industry. Many companies advertising products or services by bulk e-mail would have better luck targeting a specific audience, Gavin says. Many marketing professionals mistakenly think mass e-mail is a low-cost method of advertising.

"The Net is not a free resource," Gavin says. "Somebody pays for everything that gets done on the Internet. There is always a cost associated with sending an e-mail."

While the figure is hard to calculate, it includes the resources ISPs use to deal with large amounts of data on their networks, Gavin says. Consumers pay a cost in the time it takes to download spam. The European Commission earlier this year estimated that spam costs European Internet users about $8.57 billion annually in Internet connectivity. Since the early 1990s, when America Online first took its service to consumers, the Internet has became a gold mine for direct marketers, says show founder Geller.

Since then, marketing scams and pyramid schemes have migrated to the Web from mail and newspaper advertisements because it is cheaper and reaches a wider audience. And there may be no way to get rid of spam if governments, marketers, and consumers can't come to a consensus on a solution.

"I remember e-mail before there was ever marketing, when it was just a bunch of techies chatting online," Geller says. Unfortunately, he notes, those days are history.

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