Filtering
Spam: Research Agendas
Notes
from discussion seminar at Oxford Internet Institute, June 18, 2003
Notes
by Benjamin Edelman
I.
Scale of the problem
A. Academic, w/o
commercial interests
B. Economics of
spam
C.
Responses to spam
D.
Effect on companies’ cost of running servers
1. Brownouts? Add’l hardware needed?
E. Existing OII
survey data
II.
Regulatory practices
A. Will problem
solve itself?
B. Legal
initiatives
1. Self-labeling
requirement (“ADV:”)
2. Existing law
(fair trade, consumer protection)
3. Enforcement of
ISPs’ Terms of Service
4. See spamlaws.com
C.
Modification to email system itself? Impose cost to sending mail.
D.
Companies becoming more conservative, blocking more
inbound mail? White lists rather than
block lists?
III.
Definitions
A. What is
solicited versus what is not
B. Whether
filters match users’ definitions
C.
Existing legislative efforts at definition, but hard
to defeat strong marketing lobby in US.
IV.
Related disciplines, undercurrents, and other ideas
A. Ethics
B. Who are the
spammers? Personal profiles? How many spammers are there? Need empirical answers.
C.
Historical context: Unsolicited telegraphs,
unsolicited phone calls, unsolicited faxes.
What is different about Internet?
1) Jurisdiction, 2) Cost.
1. Comparison
with state-based do-not-call list.
D.
Is it realistic or helpful to expect a lack of spam in
email? Much advertising seen when
walking down the street.
V.
Big-picture thinking
A. Self-regulation
backed up by law