Companies Often Ignore New Anti-Spam Law.

Byline: Brian Kladko

Apr. 21--Nearly one in six companies that send commercial e-mail are violating the federal anti-spam law, according to a technology research firm.

JupiterResearch found that 16 percent of the companies it studied in January and February -- many of them household names in the retail, travel, media, and financial services industries -- continued to send messages to people 10 days after receiving "opt-out" replies from them. Under the law, a company has 10 days to remove someone from its e-mailing list.

"Ten days is a long time when it comes to just updating an e-mail database," said John Mozena, vice president of the Coalition for Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail, or CAUCE. "That's something that can be done instantaneously or at least relatively quickly. That number is distressingly high."

JupiterResearch also found that 7 percent of the opt-out links in the messages did not work.

Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act in December and gave companies about a month to comply. Critics contend the law is largely meaningless, because it allows companies to send unsolicited e-mail to someone at least once, and only government agencies and Internet providers -- not private citizens -- can seek redress.

Perhaps more significant, most spam is generated by shady operators who evade the law by hiding their identities and routing their e-mail through overseas computers.