Anti-Spammers Slammed For Spamming

A new initiative by consumer groups to bring federal action against companies that send unsolicited e-mail, known as "spam," was undercut Wednesday when the groups themselves were accused of spamming.

The Web site, banthespam.com, encourages Internet users to share their spam horror stories and add their names to a petition to be sent to federal regulators.

Even if an Internet user chose not to receive e-mail updates from the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, one of the effort's sponsors, the Web site replied with the message: "You are currently signed up for news and information."

When notified by The Associated Press, other consumer groups that support anti-spam causes declined to comment. But Adam Thierer of the libertarian Cato Institute, which supports the rights of marketers to send unsolicited e-mail, called the incident outrageous.

"They're being highly hypocritical here in attempting to encourage increased federal regulation of something and then turning around and doing it themselves," Thierer said. "Some people are supposedly holier than thou, but yet are sinners themselves."

After being notified by a reporter, TRAC changed the site to reply with the message "You will not get e-mail from us unless you requested it when you submitted your story about spam."

TRAC Chairman Sam Simon apologized for the mistake and blamed it on one of the group's Web designers. He said people that did not choose to receive e-mail updates wouldn't get them.

"The guy that put it up didn't understand it real well," Simon said

TRAC and the other groups, Consumer Action and the National Consumers League, want the Federal Trade Commission to sue marketers that send spam without authentic return addresses or send e-mails to someone who has "opted-out" of receiving the messages.

In a statement, the FTC said it is concerned about the proliferation of spam and plans to review the petition. The FTC has an e-mail address where Internet users can forward offensive junk e-mail. That address gets about 10,000 such e-mails a day, the FTC says.

In March and April, the FTC shut down several Internet marketing operations that used deceptive spam. In one case, commission lawyers said the e-mails enticed victims into paying $11 million in hidden telephone charges.

By D. Ian Hopper