And still - mounting frustration

3 weeks into our new anti spam laws, has anything changed yet?
Well, yes it has. I am receiving a lot less email from newsletters I have previously subscribed to.
One thing that remains the same is the volume of spam – still very high.
But it does appear that certain amount of legitimate email has been discouraged – so well done the Government – another piece of brilliantly thought out and well executed legislation.
At least we can take heart in the high volume of prosecutions that have resulted – well, none in fact, demonstrating that this toothless legislation missed the point – there are no spammers in NZ and the solution to ending, or at least limiting spam is no nearer.
A recent conversation with the Marketing Association revealed that for some time they have been in discussion with major NZ ISPs about a national whitelist.
Those discussions must be pretty arcane, because no-one seems to know anything about it – how far the issue has been progressed, when it might come into force etc.
A national whitelist, combined with authentication, would make a major difference to the volume of spam, and the ability of legitimate emailers to reach the desktop, so it is a great idea.
It is not hard to set up, and needs to be implemented sooner rather than later to ensure we in NZ do not lose faith in email as a medium of communications.

The other side of spam

We all get spam, some more than others. Upcoming legislation in NZ, originally aimed at preventing spam, will simply prevent spammers from operating in NZ - it will not diminish the volume of spam we receive.

So what will?

For legitimate email marketers and publishers, spam is a problem in that due to ISP and desktop filtering practices, quite often our emails get blocked or filtered even when the recipient is dying to receive it. So we have a commercial and conceptual interest in diminishing spam.

In the USA, where email is a sophisticated and specialist discipline, Authentication is catching on. 44% of all emails are sent using either Sender ID or Domain Keys, the two main standards of authentication.

Put simply, Authentication ties the senders IP address to the domain name used - thus preventing spammers from pretending to be abc@bigbrand.com or whichever well known name they hide behind. So this would enable ISPs to eliminate a great deal of spam, and all phishing emails at source.

Then there is the perspective of legitimate email marketers and publishers; using authentication, ISPs can whitelist proper email senders - so that all legitimate emails get as far as the desktop.

Senders of bulk email who were not whitelisted could be identified and encouraged to demonstrate their legitimacy so that they could be whitelisted too. After a while, any bulk sendouts which were not authenticated and whitelisted could also be blocked at source until such time as they either stopped emailing, or adhered to the ISP standards.

The Unsolicited Commercial Messages Act states that it is merely one of a number of measures that will fight spam, and stresses the importance of self regulation amongst the email industry.

Authentication is a relatively cheap and simple solution to implement, yet when asked Xtra, Ihug and Clear all said it was "too hard".

So next time you miss a really important email because your ISP guessed it might be spam, remember, ask them to adopt authentication.