The Federal Trade Commission cast doubt yesterday on the creation of a national do-not-email registry, signaling that such a list may even increase the amount of spam consumers receive.
The commission told Congress that an e-mail registry would also fail to reduce the amount of spam filling up inboxes and that such a registry would be difficult to enforce.
The agency suggested that anti-spam efforts should focus on creating an e-mail authentication system to prevent spammers from being able to hide in cyberworld and from avoiding Internet service providers, filters and the law.
The Direct Marketing Association commended the commission on its thoroughness and “practical roadmap” towards the development of e-mail authentication.
“It is imperative that there will be an authentication system in place so that consumers and regulators can determine who sent the e-mail and take appropriate action, said Jerry Cerasale, the DMA’s senior VP-government affairs, in a statement.
Under the Can-Spam Act, passed in December 2003, the FTC was charged with developing a plan for establishing an e-mail registry, similar to the current national do-not-call list, which now totals 61.8 million telephone numbers.
The FTC said that it analyzed three types of scenarios for a registry: one containing individual e-mail addresses; another listing domain names that did want to receive spam and a third of individual names that required unsolicited commercial e-mail to be sent via a third party to addresses not on the registry.
Privacy and security risks, proper enforcement and the risk that spammers would use the list all contributed to the FTC’s comments.
The FTC said it would sponsor a summit to encourage an analysis of possible authentication systems and their deployment this fall.
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