Ethical Analysis on Spam ENGINEERING ETHICS Professional Ethics

Ethical Analysis on Spam

ENGINEERING ETHICS Professional Ethics in Engineering, L 7: Ethics of SPAM E-Mail Prof. Dr. Abduladhem Abdulkareem Ali, SMIEEE, MACM Department of Computer Engineering, College of Engineering University of Basrah

Overview of Spam n Definition n n submitting the same message to a large group of individuals in an effort to force the message onto people who would otherwise choose not to receive this message Three main components to all types of spam: n n n anonymity: the sender’s identity and address are concealed mass mailing: spam email is sent to a large number of recipients and in high quantities unsolicited: the individuals receiving spam would otherwise not have opted to receive it

How Common is Spam? Spam is very common, with most if not all individuals receiving spam email at some point in their Internet-using lives n The effectiveness of spam is not comparable n n Only 14% of people read the spam they receive, with a mere 4% of individuals buying products from spam messages

Most Common Products Advertised n E-Mail Spam by Category: n Products: 25% Financial: 20% Adult: 19% Scams: 9% Health: 7% Internet: 7% Leisure: 6% Spiritual: 4% Other: 3%

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 n Four Main Provisions: n n n False and misleading header information is banned Deceptive subject lines are prohibited Opt-out methods must be provided Commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and it must include the sender's valid physical postal address Receivers must be warned of sexually explicit material

Current Issues and Concerns of Spam n Cost of spam n n Spam inconvenience n n Avoid Spam Video Link Spam costs businesses $20. 5 billion annually in decreased productivity as well as in technical expenses Spam accounts for 14. 5 billion messages globally per day. In other words, spam makes up 45% of all emails Financial risks of spam n Identity theft

Alternate Viewpoint on Spam is beneficial to marketing companies because people are still clicking on the links. People get sucked into a spam e-mail (a lot of times without even knowing). n Companies take advantage of naïve consumers, especially the older generation and people who are uneducated about spam and what spam is. n

Spam Recommendations n n n An organization should comply with spam laws. Companies should cut down on the number of spam e-mails they send. The more they send, the more someone can tell it is spam, thus ignore. Companies can better use spam by making the emails more professional and error-free. Many times you can distinguish between what is spam and what is not because of grammar mistakes and misspellings.

Did You Know? n 86% of email addresses posted on websites are used by spammers to send unsolicited emails. 63% of all "Remove me from your list" requests are not honored. Spam accounted for 80% of all e-mail received in 2004, up from 62% in 2003. Extra: Cell Phone Spam Video Link

Website References n n n http: //www. spamlaws. com/ http: //news. zdnet. co. uk/itmanagement/0, 100000 0308, 2138099, 00. htm http: //www. elsop. com/wrc/nospam. htm http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/E-mail_spam http: //www. spambouncer. org/aboutspam/index. s html http: //www. spam-filter-review. com