FTC Kicks Off Operation Spam Zombies

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 35 government partners from more than 20 countries are targeting illegal spammers who take remote control of unwitting users’ computers to serve as spam transmission zombies. By hijacking home and business computers, spam can be routed through them, thereby hiding the true source of the spam and making the enforcement of antispam laws more difficult.

FTC Offers Bounty to Name Spammers

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced, in a public report, that a system of monetary rewards would help improve the enforcement of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2002 (CAN-SPAM Act.) That Act, which became effective on January 1, 2004, required the FTC to conduct a study and provide a report to Congress on a CAN-SPAM “bounty system.” While the fact that bounties may be offered to those who help authorities in nabbing spammers doesn’t unusual, what is very much out of the ordinary is the projected bounty amounts necessary to make them effective.

Craziest Think I’ve Ever Heard: Pay Spammers Not To Spam

The craziest thing that I’ve ever heard is to pay spammers not to spam, and that’s just what a startup company from San Antonio, Texas, Global Removal (GR), is planning to do. Their theory is that spammers are in business to make money, and that the lowbrows will remove your e-mail address from all of their junk mail lists for a buck.