ON ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF CAN-SPAM ACT, MX LOGIC REPORTS 97 PERCENT OF 2004 SPAM FAILED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAW

Todays top Press Release (edited, shown)

Spam, Other Email Threats Will Continue to Increase in 2005

DENVER—Jan. 3, 2005—MX Logic, Inc., a leading provider of innovative email defense solutions that ensure email protection and security for businesses, service providers, government organizations, resellers and their customers, reported that one year after the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act went into effect, on average 97 percent of unsolicited commercial email over the past year failed to comply with the federal anti-spam law.

“While we applaud the intent of the CAN-SPAM Act, clearly it has had no meaningful impact on the unrelenting flow of spam that continues to clog the Internet and plague inboxes,” said Scott Chasin, CTO, MX Logic. “In fact, the overall volume of spam increased in 2004 and we fully anticipate continued growth in 2005.”

On average, spam accounted for 77 percent of all email traffic, or 1 in 1.3 email messages, through the MX Logic Threat Center in 2004.

MX Logic has measured CAN-SPAM compliance each month since the law went into effect by examining a random sample of 10,000 unsolicited commercial emails each week. During 2004, monthly compliance ranged from a low of 0.54 percent in July to a high of 7percent in December.

2004: The Year of Spam

“Despite low compliance levels, the CAN-SPAM Act does provide enforcement capabilities and has helped to galvanize government and industry efforts to curb spam,” Chasin said. “Unfortunately, ending the spam epidemic will require a long-term, ongoing effort that, in addition to the law, must also include technology, industry cooperation to improve authentication and security protocols, and end-user education.”

In 2004, the CAN-SPAM Act and state anti-spam laws have been used to pursue criminal prosecution and civil action against spammers.

complete press release from company here

I suspect that this release will not get much play since it unfortunately starts with a hype for the company rather than the facts of the matter. I must caution PR agencies when they roll out good material like this that they minimize self-promotion. The promotion will come, don’t push it. The line in question is right at the beginning of the release, “MX Logic, Inc., a leading provider of innovative email defense solutions that ensure email protection and security for businesses, service providers, government organizations, resellers and their customers…”

This is then followed by self-serving and useless quotes by an executive. This never works unless the quote is controversial and nobody will do that. These are just ass-kissing quotes although I cannot tell whose ass is being kissed.

This sort of self-serving blather has nothing to do with the topic. In fact it will get most press releases such as this tossed into the can (can for can spam can spam). I don’t blame the PR folks as much as I do the executives of the company who either encourage or finally approve such wording. It’s so counter-productive that I’m always amazed by its inclusion. For one thing, nobody in his or her right mind will run this sort of rubbish without research. (I did in this blog and you see the result — complaining). How does someone on the copy desk know that MX Logic is a “leading” anything? By the time they find out one way or the other it will still get chopped out of the story and probably never run, because the news cycle is over.

All press releases run on this site will be critiqued in this manner. We need the information, but the readers need to have the smoke in the room filtered out.