Recently, I've been receiving commercial messages with a header of To:
(recipient list supressed).  I assume compilers of email addresses (IAF or
others) is by-passing the SPAM filters by distibuting direct.
 
Inevitably email addresses are going to become pretty much like post office
box addresses or telephone numbers as far as unsolicited mail is concerned.
It would make sense to me for us to lobby for an email version of the
Telephone Consumers Protecion Act that *requires* telemarketers to maintain
a nocall policy and nocall lists and imposes a $500 civil penalty (welcome
to small claims court) for EACH violation.  All a consumer has to do is
request that a telemarketer put their phone number on the nocall list, and
the penalty applies to all subsequent calls (and folks HAVE been
collecting).  The same thing could work with email although I'd ask the
legislature to make the penalty apply to ANY solicitation with a bogus
return email address.  Imagine having a few thousand recpienets file claims
with small claims courts in every juristiction in the country; imagine
offering the local sheriff all or most of the award for going out and
collecting it ;-)
 
/s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (860) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (860) 456-7725 fax
   http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html