And because e-mail costs no more than the price of gathering a list of addresses, there is no incentive for marketers to target their message to a specific audience. Internet service providers are getting hit on both ends. One strategy Carroll has deployed, in conjunction with a coalition of Internet companies around the country, is e-mail filtering. This filtering, however, has led some spammers to take a more aggressive approach, by relaying their mail through innocent third parties. This makes the messages appear as if they were coming from the third party's e-mail system, and therefore goes through the filter Carroll and others use to protect their customers.
Customers can create a list of e-mail addresses of friends and colleagues that they want to let in.
Anyone else will get a message back asking them to type a password and resend the message. Meanwhile, the junk e-mailers hope to still persuade Internet service companies to work with them, not against them. And their customers can still opt out of receiving anything. Still, Rines admits the industry needs to clean up its act. Aftab, the Paramus attorney, thinks it's too late for the industry to save itself.