The Federal Trade Commission recently released their first assessment of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. The 2-year-old effort has given legitimate email marketers a set of guidelines to live by, detailing what should not be done when sending commercial email, such as using false header information, using open relays for transmission of email, and using deceptive or false subject lines. While a study by email security firm MX Logic found that only 4 percent of all commercial emails sent in 2005 are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act, the FTC cites that overall spam levels have decreased. Also, compliance is high among legitimate marketers, and the amount of sexually explicit spam has dropped significantly.

E-mail service providers went ballistic over last week’s announcement that AOL will phase out its Enhanced Whitelist in favor of Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail program. First, some background: AOL, which fends off billions of spam messages every day, blocks graphics and links on most bulk e-mail unless the sender is on AOL’s whitelist, thus allowing commercial mailers with good reputations to get through the filters.

One might not associate sophisticated crimes such as mass spamming, dedicated denial of service (DDOS) attacks, or identity theft with a mindless zombie, but the computer variety of the monsters in compromised PC form are doing all of that and more.

Hoping to turn the tide on spam zombies, Microsoft has filed suit against entities it said used compromised PCs to send millions of junk e-mail messages.

A new email hoax has landed on Australian screens offering email users a free Sony portable gaming machine via a chain-mail message, which contains fake contact details and potentially dangerous links.