Critics of the new law are calling Can Spam ineffective because of legal loopholes that will only hinder attempts to get at the real source of the more persistent forms of spam, not the spammers themselves.
In some cases, critics of Can Spam are saying that the new law actually encourages the amount of junk email that circulates through global email browsers.
According to a study by MessageLabs, a global filter company, spam accounted for two-thirds of all email recieved in December, or 62.7 percent of email traffic, which the study claims is a record high.
"These growth rates are very, very dramatic," a representative for MessageLabs told AFP.
According to AFP, MessageLabs reported global spam at 55 percent in November and 51 percent in October. In January of 2003, spam accounted for only 10 percent of all emails.
However, according to MessageLabs, that number is expected to take a 70 percent leap by April of this year.
The Can Spam Act went into effect on a federal level on Jan. 1 of 2004 and overrode many more powerful state anti-spam laws in place, as well as pending anti-spam laws.
Similarly, the European Privacy and Communications Directive came into effect on Dec. 11 in the United Kingdom, and according to email security company Spamhaus, within a month of the new law, the UK become one of the worse spam offenders on record, and only one step behind the U.S. as the most prolific sender of unsolicited commercial email.
According to email security company Postini, immediately following the enactment of the Can Spam Act, unsolicited spam rose from 74 percent in December to 84 percent within the first couple of days of the New Year.
Can Spam is a softer version of many state laws insofar as it federally enforces the opt-out option on commercial email. Whereas several laws already in place would have required spammers to comply with an opt-in feature, which according to critics, would have more effectively curbed the inflow of spam.
Prior anti-spam laws also would have enabled individual users to file lawsuits directly against spammers.
"Over three quarters of our users are so aggravated by deleting spam that they think it's worse than cleaning out their toilets," Laura Yecies, senior director for email at Yahoo, told AFP.
According to Spamhaus, the new UK law has already proven itself to be useless and will do nothing to hinder spammers.
"Because it will take the Information Commissioner at least 80 days to force a spammer to take an individual off his list before a £5,000 fine can be levied, this has actively encouraged more spammers to set up in the UK who will target businesses as well," Steve Linford, founder of Spamhaus told Vnunet.com Net Law.
Linford firmly believes that spam will increase in 2004 and he blames the U.S. and UK's new anti-spam laws for the increase.
In referring to Can Spam, Linford stated that the new law has some good points, including the multi-million dollar lawsuits the government can leverage against spammers, but that it basically gives spammers the greenlight to continue.
