Comment Articles

Spam's biggest challenge: Defining it

David Berlind ZDNet.com

Published: 01 Sep 2003 10:50 BST

Whether he knows it or not, Charlie Rose flushed out one of the thorniest issues when it comes to battling spam. During a recent taping of his show on the topic, Rose's first directive out of the gate had to do with defining spam. He turned to me: "David, help us agree on what spam is."

For some time now, I've been saying that we won't make progress in the battle until we set aside any and all attempts to define spam. There is no single definition, and relying on solutions that respond to a single definition is a big mistake. Today, most solutions -- such as those used to protect the inboxes of certain ISPs' customers or corporate users -- take this approach

Unfortunately, Rose turned to me first to provide a definition. Had he turned to me last, after his other guests -- Microsoft chief counsel Brad Smith, FTC commissioner Orson Swindle, and AOL senior vice president Joe Barrett -- had taken their turns, my point would have been much easier to make. Each guest volunteered a different definition.

Microsoft's Smith -- the lawyer spearheading Microsoft's 15 separate lawsuits against spammers -- defined spam as "unsolicited commercial email sent to advertise a product or a service." AOL's Barrett called spam "an unwanted automated message." Finally, the FTC's Swindle responded to Rose's question with "anything I don't like." This "Swindle Rule" was the definition I liked best of the three. Swindle understands the spam problem better than most people I know. The Swindle Rule speaks volumes about Swindle's belief that to solve the problem, end users must be empowered to decide for themselves what is and what is not spam. Said Swindle during the show, "if we empower consumers at their computer to screen out that which they prefer to screen out, and I know that can be done in a number of ways, I think that will be one part of the solution."

My interpretation is that ISPs and other centralised entities in a position to intercept email before it reaches its intended recipient shouldn't be making that decision on behalf of users, which is what is happening today. Before a decision to filter an email can be made at any central interception point, the administrators of that interception point must decide what the common definition of spam will be for all downstream users. This approach is flawed since, as the Swindle Rule says, spam is anything the end user doesn't like. What satisfies the Swindle Rule for Orson Swindle may be very different from what satisfies the rule for Charlie Rose, Brad Smith, or Joe Barrett.