The Federal Trade Commission is offering what amounts to a flea on an elephant's you-know-what in the war against spam.

Consumers can complain about spam via a new email address spam@uce.gov which will phase out the old address, uce@ftc.gov, to better handle the volume of spam.

Consumers can use the email address to simply forward suspected spam directly to the FTC. Consumers also have the option of using the FTC's complaint form to rail against unwanted electronic missives, known as spam.

The FTC uses the database of forwarded spam and complaints to generate cases against companies and people who use spam illegally including by spreading false, misleading and fraudulent claims about products or services, typically to bilk people out of money.

Spam is electronic junk mail, unsolicited direct marketing sent via email. It's officially known as unsolicited commercial email or UCE.

Mortgage and real estate industry spam is among the most despised forms of spam.

Last year, a Harris Poll of 2,221 adults conducted online by Harris Interactive between November 22 and December 2, 2002 found that in terms of most despised spam, the mortgage variety was second only to pornographic email solicitations, followed by investments, real estate, software and computers.

Real estate and mortgage industry officials say most industry professionals do not use the electronic irritant as a marketing tool.

The vast majority of email today is spam. It clogs email boxes and costs billions a year to manage, in lost productivity and in related fraud and deception expenses.

CAN-SPAM Act, which was effective Jan. 1, 2004, prohibits spam senders from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line. It also prohibits senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites and requires such e-mails to include a mechanism so recipients can indicate they do not want future mass e-mailing.

Violators can be fined millions of dollars and face imprisonment, but the law has been tough to enforce without a Do Not Spam Registry similar to the fed's registry for unwanted telephoned solicitations the successful Do Not Call Registry.

The FTC receives more than 2 million samples of deceptive spam forwarded by computer users every week, but without adequate technology the FTC has been limited in enforcement actions and has gone after only a few of the largest national and international spamming operations.

This fall, the federal agency will sponsor a Fall 2004 Authentication Summit to encourage the development of email authentication systems to prevent spammers from masking their identity. Identity masking allows spam to evade many spam filters and, as a result, the long but feeble arm of the law.

Published: August 11, 2004

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A journalist for 35-years, Broderick Perkins parlayed an old-school daily newspaper career into a digital news service offering editorial content and consulting services. Perkins' San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews Group includes the flagship news site, DeadlineNews.Com, offering real estate, personal finance and consumer journalism, and a backshop, the Deadline Newsroom.