DM News: FBI Wants to Get International DMAs Involved in Cybercrime

An FBI official spoke at a Direct Marketing Association (DMA) show, praising to DMA heads in other countries the DMA's Slam Spam effort, and indicating that the international direct marketing industry could also help with efforts against identity theft. The Slam Spam effort started out as a means to help define "spam" as online fraud, instead of unsolicited commercial email. In fact, very few of the cases - fewer than 10 percent - made by the Justice Department in its recent online dragnet had much to do with spam, and instead concentrated on online fraud.

Daniel J. Larkin, the FBI's head of the Internet Crime Complaint Center told DM News that progress was being made on the phishing issue and that "significant noteworthy subjects" would be made part of legal actions taking place in the next several months.

In early September, at least one Justice official had expressed exasperation at the DMA's role in the government's criminal prosecution efforts, although all official communications on the topic have expressed only praise for DMA assistance. DMA officials have said that justice department executives "that matter" all consider the DMA to be helpful.