There have been several stories over the past few days about spam worth mentioning. First up is new spam-fighter Mailblocks’ failed attempt to stop others from using its claimed technology. As you may remember, Mailblocks uses the challenge-response method to differentiate between e-mail sent by humans and that sent by junk e-mailers. Turns out Mailblocks may not have been the first to use this technology. And it may be that the spammers can beat this challenge-response thing anyway.
In legislative news, the rather unlikely team of Democrat Chuck Schumer and the Christian Coalition have teamed up to support theStop Pornography and Abusive Marketing (SPAM) Act. The bill, which has been enrolled as Senate Bill 1231, would allow recipients of spam to sue the spammer directly.
Finally, a study estimates that spam will cost business $198 billion a year by 2007 if the spam problem continues to worsen (Via TechDirt)