OT: AOL Blocks Spammers' Web Sites

[Guest guest]

By Jonathan Krim

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, March 20, 2004; Page A01

 

America Online Inc. has adopted a new tactic against spam: blocking its

members' ability to see Web sites promoted by bulk e-mailers.

 

The policy, which began earlier this year, opens a new front in the war

on spam but also makes the Dulles company the first of its kind to push

past the traditional Internet orthodoxy that service providers should be

neutral conduits to anything the World Wide Web has to offer.

 

Many spammers advertise products -- including body-enhancement pills,

pirated software and get-rich-quick schemes -- by including links in

their e-mail to Internet sites that display the wares and process

orders. AOL members attempting to visit a blocked Web page receive an

error message that says a connection to the page could not be made, but

are not told that it is a spammer's site that has been placed off

limits. No other notification of the policy is provided.

 

" Essentially, we have vastly improved AOL's ability to restrict

identified spammers' sites from being accessed by our members online, "

said company spokesman Nicholas J. Graham. He said AOL is choosing which

sites to block based on complaints from its members, who can report spam

that they receive to the company.

 

Graham said the Web site blocking policy has contributed to, for the

first time, a reduction in the amount of bulk mail that spammers are

trying to send to its members.

 

The move highlights the fact that Internet providers have the ability to

block users from seeing certain content. Indeed, in trying to

short-circuit the income stream of spammers, AOL is attacking one of the

most vexing truths about the spam problem: Some people want and buy the

products, which helps keeps the spammers in business.

 

" There is a service to AOL members by doing this, " said Paul M. Smith, a

Washington lawyer who specializes in Internet and media law. " But

there's some trade-off . . . because some people want to go to those

sites. It shows that there can be in the world of the Internet some

serious issues raised by a small number of companies that [control]

bottlenecks to the flow of information. "

 

Although AOL has joined hands with Internet service competitors

EarthLink Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Inc. to sue spammers and to

develop new technologies for blocking spam, AOL is alone in its move to

try to cut off access to commerce Web sites advertised via spam.

 

EarthLink spokeswoman Carla Shaw said her service has begun to block Web

sites that are linked from spam that purports to be from EarthLink. In a

scam known as phishing, the e-mail directs users to sites that look like

they are EarthLink's and asks for personal data. AOL has blocked

phishing sites for about a year.

 

Neither Microsoft nor block access to Web sites for their e-mail

account holders.

 

Legal experts said there is nothing in the AOL strategy that violates

free-speech laws. And Internet service providers (ISPs) have long

provided parents the ability to block content from their children.

 

" The model of the Internet always came with some substantial latitude

for the ISP to pick and choose, " said James X. Dempsey, executive

director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a public interest

group. " What we're talking about is a byproduct of the strain spam is

placing on the Internet. There's no doubt that spam is forcing ISPs and

others to some extreme measures. "

 

But Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,

said AOL's intentions are good, but blocking Web sites is

" paternalistic. " She said she worries that system could be abused by

someone seeking to block a rival's Web site by spamming AOL members with

that link.

 

Graham said AOL abides by a Pennsylvania law that requires ISPs to block

access to child-pornography sites. That law is being challenged by civil

liberties groups because the list of blocked sites is determined by the

state attorney general's office. Government deciding what people can see

or read violates the First Amendment, these groups say.

 

Graham said that the combination of improved filtering, stepped-up legal

actions and the Web site blocking could be turning spammers away from

AOL, whose members have been a prime spam target. According to AOL's

numbers on Feb. 20, 2.6 billion pieces of spam were sent to AOL

accounts. On March 17, the number was 1.9 billion.

 

Statistics from other Internet providers, e-mail security companies and

market research firms show that overall spam traffic has held steady for

the past several months at about 60 percent of all e-mail traffic.

 

 

© 2004 The Washington Post Company