The Online Marketplace
We believe the internet, in its proliferation as an inexpensive international marketplace and information-sharing network, has become a massive and critical component of international trade. E-commerce represents more than frivolous entertainments and electronic storefronts for brick-and-mortar businesses. It is the source of millions of new jobs and thousands of new businesses (small and large) every year. Long gone is the time when the internet could be dismissed as a fad. Contrarily, many see it as the future – a place where we, as consumers, may take our money first.

The Proliferation of Spam
However, the low cost of advertising on the internet has attracted more than legitimate businesses to the online marketplace. Criminals looking to make a quick buck have found countless ways to take advantage of the electronic medium to commit illegal acts: theft, fraud, etc.

Illegal e-mailings (spam) are the crime of choice because of its low cost, largely immediate results and electronic anonymity. Its proliferation has become more than a nuisance. More than a crime. It threatens the internet itself because it threatens consumer confidence in the electronic marketplace and lowers the trust of the public in what it sees online. Clearly, spam is a critical international epidemic that requires a swift, complete and long term solution.

How to Stop Spam
Spam will stop when it is no longer profitable to criminals. We agree with many international organizations that the answer to the spam problem lies in the following three areas:

• Legislation. In every country where there is public internet access, spam threatens international trade. Laws governing spam will discourage potential criminals and enforcement of the laws will punish those who disobey them. International cooperation will eventually leave no safe haven for those who plan to commit this crime.
• Technology. Advances in software and hardware can ease or automate processes for dealing with spam – even eliminating it altogether. If spam is not getting to its audience, it makes no money. Eventually, the reward will not exceed the risk.
• Education. Spam is also a problem because of public ignorance. Not knowing how to discern which messages are spam, not knowing how to properly avoid getting on spammer’s lists, not knowing how to eliminate the spam they have and not appreciating the significance of the spam epidemic are spam’s greatest allies.

LashBack is the Answer
Filtering email messages to separate wanted email from unwanted email, seems to be the popular choice in fighting spam. While this admittedly reduces the nuisance and increases productivity, it does not solve the problem: spam is still being sent in record amounts. Filtering doesn’t lessen the amount of spam sent, just the amount received. Meanwhile, spammers educate themselves on new filtering methods and start again. It’s unlikely, if not impossible, for filtering to stop spam alone.

To beat spam – to save the internet – the amount of spam sent must be reduced until it is eliminated. LashBack helps accomplish this feat by supporting all three of the ways to stop spam (Legislation, Technology and Education) by doing the following:

• Our technology supports the rights of consumers to choose – specifically to choose which email they want versus the email they don’t want. By being able to automatically unsubscribe them from email lists, LashBack places choice back into the hands of the individual.
• Our processes help identify law-breaking advertisers (spammers) – The U.S. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 requires that all email be truthful and provide obvious and working unsubscribe (opt-out) mechanisms so that consumers can have their email addresses dropped from advertiser’s lists. Lashback supports this law through a patent-pending mechanism which automatically unsubscribes users from emails they deem unwanted. An increase in the safety and usage of working opt-out mechanisms will actually lower the amount of unwanted email traffic, thereby reducing spam and its costly taxing of the internet. Additionally, opt-out requests that are ignored by spammers become evidence of wrong-doing and provide ample ammunition to prosecutors seeking to find and punish these criminals.
• Educating the ISP's – With LashBack collecting massive amounts of data on the habits of online advertisers, we have a unique understanding of which advertisers are actually trying (and succeeding) in honoring the wishes of consumers. These results are passed on to Internet Service Providers to aid them in filtering good email from bad email. They are able to simply block those who have proven to ignore (or even abuse) requests to unsubscribe.

How can you take advantage of what LashBack has to offer?
if you are an employee/owner of an Internet Service provider or Anti-Spam company, you will enjoy this information on how we can automate the unsubscribe requests of your customers, while providing you information on the identities of the good and bad guys of email advertising.

If you are a consumer (and we all are) and you want some spam relief right now, take a look at LashBack's Outlook Add-On which can help you automatically and safely unsubscribe from unwanted junk mail.