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FTC Study Shows Technology Gaining in the Battle Against Spam

November 28, 2005 - According to a new study released today by the Federal Trade Commission, spammers continue to harvest email addresses from public areas of the Internet, but Internet Service Providers� anti-spam technologies can block the vast majority of spam sent to these email addresses. The FTC staff report also found that consumers who must post their e-mail addresses on the Internet can prevent them from being harvested by using a technique known as �masking.�

The agency studied three aspects of spam: e-mail address harvesting � the automated collection of e-mail addresses from public areas of the Internet; the effectiveness of spam filtering by ISPs; and the effectiveness of using �masked� e-mail addresses as a technique to prevent the harvesting of e-mail addresses.

To conduct the study, FTC staff created 150 new undercover e-mail accounts � 50 at an ISP that uses no anti-spam filters and 50 each at two different ISPs that use spam filters. They then posted the e-mail addresses on 50 Internet sites, including message boards, blogs, chat rooms, and USENET groups where spammers might go to attempt to harvest the addresses.

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