Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
The USPTO granted patent 6,643,686 on November 4, 2003. It is “a system and method for circumventing schemes that use duplication detection to detect and block unsolicited e-mail (spam). InternetNews.com quotes the executive director of the SpamCon Foundation as seeing the technology as a “…potentially…effective tool against spam…”
The American Records Management Association Education Foundation sponsored a research project by John C. Montaña, J.D., titled Legal Obstacles to E-Mail Message Destruction (42 pages, pdf), published October 19, 2003. The report addresses risk management associated with e-mail retention, the definition and legal status of e-mail, state, federal and foreign government laws associated with the …
The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003: Real Reform or Political Pork? by Neil J. Squillante: “Many of my peers in the online marketing industry claim that requiring permission (opting in) would destroy emails commercial potential. I disagree and can personally attest to the fact that permission is good for business. If companies produce outstanding email newsletters …
From InfoWorld, this useful review of the following anti-spam applications for use on the enterprise level: Brightmail Anti-Spam Enterprise Edition Version 5.1, FrontBridge TrueProtect E-mail Security Suite, Postini Perimeter Manager Enterprise Edition, Proofpoint Protection Server 1.2.1, and SpamAssassin 2.44, an open source spam filter included with Red Hat Linux 9.
New worm variant targets identity data: A new twist has been applied to an email worm, called Mimail, that appeared this past August, and it has been harnassed specifically to steal credit card data from customers of PayPal, the online payment service, which is owned by eBay.
From The Yale Journal of Law & Technology (YJoLT): Message Deleted? Resolving Physician-Patient E-mail through Contract Law, by Michael A. McCann – “This article examines the impact of e-mail on the physician-patient relationship, and how contract law can resolve the uncertainties incumbent in this nascent form of communication.”
Spammers Can Run but They Can’t Hide: “…the nerve center of Spamhaus, controlling servers on five continents…[is] its database [of] dossiers on the 200 most prolific spammers and the addresses of the 8,000 computers they use to inundate people with ads. Spamhaus makes the list available to Internet service providers, which use the information to …
Internetnews.com reports that the Internet Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter to House leaders indicating their opposition to the CAN SPAM Act, under consideration by the House and already passed by the Senate. The reasons included “that the amended act has so many loopholes, exceptions and standards of proof that …
“As from today EU Member States must comply with the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, which sets EU standards for the protection of privacy and personal data in electronic communications. The Directive includes basic obligations to ensure the security and confidentiality of communications over EU electronic networks, including internet and mobile services. It sets …
A team of researchers from the School of Information Management and Systems University of California, Berkeley released a new study today, How Much Information? 2003, that chronicles the information explosion over the past several years. According to the team, during the period of 1999 to 2002, “new stored information grew about 30% a year.” Additional …
Internetnews.com reports that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert may push forward with a full floor vote on the Can Spam Act (passed by the Senate on October 22) tomorrow. The goal of passing an anti-spam bill by the end of the year is questionable in light of objections to various provisions of the Act.
Today California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced that the state won a judgment of $2 million against a spammer (The People of the State of California v. PW Marketing, Santa Clara County Superior Court) in what will be a model for future cases involving unsolicited email. As I posted previously, the state’s new anti-spam law …
