Congress directed the FTC to prepare the report when it passed the CAN-SPAM Act in 2003. Under the law, the commission was directed to submit to Congress a plan for requiring unsolicited commercial e-mail to be identified by the subject line or concerns that would cause the commission to recommend against such a plan. The proposed rule, which was supported by consumer groups, would have made it easier for ISPs to filter spam sent to subscribers on their network and made it easier for consumers to tell if messages in their inboxes were commercial.
However, the report notes several challenges that the commission and Internet Service Providers would face in making such a rule effective. Chief among these is the fact that messages from outlaw spammers would not include the required labels, making it difficult for law enforcement to track down and penalize those who do not comply with the rule.
The commission concluded that mandatory subject line labeling would be a less precise tool for consumers to use for sorting out spam than spam filters that are widely available now at little or no cost (through ISPs or commercial companies).
Internet service providers such as Earthlink and America Online currently provide e-mail filtering by flagging messages from senders not on a users approved-sender list and putting them in a folder separate from the user's inbox. The user can then go through this folder and quickly and easily delete unwanted e-mail and forward desired messages to his or her inbox.
AOL has a program whereby legitimate businesses can send bulk e-mail without being caught in the company's spam filters. In order to be placed on AOL's whitelist, a business is required to send over 100 e-mails a month, the messages must be CAN SPAM-compliant and the recipients must opt in to receive the messages.
The FTC's report states that these filters empower consumers to set individualized e-mail preferences to reduce unwanted unsolicited e-mail from both spammers and legitimate marketers more effectively than would filtering based on subject line labeling.
Another challenge faced by an e-mail labeling requirement is that some consumers may like to receive unsolicited electronic messages, while others definitely will not. "[T]he word 'spam' means different things to different people," U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch noted. "The Federal Trade Commission defines spam generally as 'unsolicited commercial email' and some Americans do not want any of it. Other consumers like to receive unsolicited offers by email; to these consumers, spam means only the unwanted fraudulent or pornographic email that also floods their inbox."
"The commission continues to believe that emphasis should be placed on encouraging industry to develop alternatives, such as e-mail authentication, in lieu of a requirement for subject line labeling," the report concluded.
This is not the first time the FTC has recommended Internet service providers implement e-mail authentication. The commission report on establishing a national 'do not e-mail' registry patterned after the Do Not Call Registry issued last year also recognized the need for e-mail authentication to protect consumers from spam.
Additionally, earlier this month, a group of companies signed up to hold a summit on e-mail authentication in New York City on July 12th. "E-mail authentication is crucial. We need to start implementing and teaching businesses how to deploy today. When you add reputation to the validation of the known identity of senders, we move toward better protecting users and businesses from deceptive e-mail exploits including spam and phishing," said Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
