Today, the Internet Mail Consortium (IMC) is releasing to the public its
report detailing the various proposed solutions to Unsolicited Bulk Email
(UBE), better known as "spam". The report, available for free from the IMC
Web site, describes the advantages and disadvantages of the various
technical and legal solutions that have been proposed to help reduce the
damage caused by UBE. The report can be found at
<http://www.imc.org/ube-sol.html>.
Because the solutions being proposed are still in flux and because none of
the solutions present a clear, long-term solution to the problems Internet
users face from UBE, the report does not take sides about which solutions
are better or worse. Instead, it gives the public a deeper understanding of
how each solution would affect mail recipients and the Internet as a whole.
This will hopefully lead to more informed discussions about how to solve
the problem of UBE.
The report, titled "Unsolicited Bulk Email: Mechanisms for Control", is the
second in a series from the IMC. The first report, "Unsolicited Bulk Email:
Definitions and Problems", gives a foundation for how UBE affects the
Internet; it is still available at <http://www.imc.org/ube-def.html>. IMC's
members are very concerned about the rapid spread of UBE because it makes
using Internet mail more costly and painful to most Internet users and
therefor slows the growth of Internet mail.
If you have any questions about the report, please feel free to contact me
at <phoffman@imc.org>. General information about the IMC and our members is
always available at <http://www.imc.org/>.
Paul Hoffman, Director
Internet Mail Consortium