It
would be fairly easy to automate the process, but not as easy as it would be to
write a program to send out millions of e-mail messages, said Matthew Prince,
chief executive of Chicago-based Unspam, a consulting firm that advises
businesses and governments on how to comply with anti-spam laws.
It's difficult to pin down who is behind instant message spam and how
it is sent, and there are no solid estimates available to reveal the size of the
problem. But the good news for users is that it's not easy for spammers to send
thousands or millions of unsolicited instant messages. Instant message providers
like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo have a lot of control over their instant message
networks, and these firms are already committing resources to making sure the
spim problem never reaches the same scale as spam.
"There's a small number of points of control and the network managers
can throttle the spam much more effectively than they can in the distributed
architecture of e-mail," said Jason Catlett, president of the anti-spam
organization JunkBusters.
AOL, for example, uses "rate limiting" technology that puts a cap on
the size of messages users can send as well as how many recipients they can
reach.
"I don't think IM spam has become anything on the scale of the problem
that regular spam is," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said.
Weinstein said AOL has other measures at its disposal to block spim but
would not provide details, saying it would give spammers clues to get around
those techniques.
One tool AOL Instant Messenger fans can use is the "knock-knock"
feature, which allows them to choose whether they want to accept a message from
an unknown sender. Instant messaging users also can repeatedly "warn" message
spammers until they are temporarily kicked off the network.
"Will they find other ways to get back into the system? Yeah, they
probably will, but those tools are effective in slowing [spammers] down,"
Weinstein said.
Microsoft recently updated its instant messaging products to curb spam,
said company spokesman Sean Sundwall. Customers using the latest versions of the
software can only receive messages from their online "buddies."
"IM spam is increasing. It's concerning," Sundwall said. "It has the
attention of Congress and the FTC and what we are gearing up for is preventing
it from becoming the next big vector for spammers to inundate customers with
unwanted messages."
Unlike anonymous spammers, established marketers have not shown much
interest in using instant messaging, said Patricia Faley, vice president for
ethics and consumer affairs at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). She said
some DMA members have toyed with marketing models that use instant messages for
special offers but only after getting a customer's consent.
Faley said the DMA plans to adopt a policy on instant message marketing
within the next six months, and the group already is on record opposing
"dictionary attacks" where spammers send marketing materials to random
accounts.
"We have a policy not to shock, surprise or upset consumers," Faley
said.
The Federal Trade Commission is tracking instant message spam but has
yet to act on it, said staff attorney Brian Huseman. "We haven't seen a great
number of consumer complaints about it so far, but we'll definitely keep an eye
on it."
Similarly, Congress and the states have taken no action on instant
messaging spam. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), who sponsored the CAN-SPAM Act that
passed the Senate last month, is monitoring the issue and may act on it next
year, said spokesman Grant Toomey.
Instant messaging is not a big revenue generator, but companies have
good reason to keep their networks clean, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at
Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft. Microsoft and AOL look at their
IM offerings as gateway services that help draw customers in to their paid
Internet offerings. Staying competitive requires happy customers.
Under that rationale, IM user Dossinger is a perfect example of why
instant message spam needs to be stopped before it becomes an epidemic: "If I
got even a quarter of the amount of IM spam as I do over e-mail, there's no way
I'd still be using it."
