Spam is a major market opportunity--for the folks who spew the junk as well as for those who build products to block it. Now there's a new genre of service that bridges the gap between spam and spam prevention. For a fee, services such as Remove.org and Global Removal promise to reduce unwanted e-mail by removing your address from spammers' databases. Are these services the real deal or just another spam scam? Read on to find out.

Out, damned spam
At first glance, Remove.org has a certain appeal. For $10 a year, you can "add your e-mail to the 'National Opt Out Directory'," as well as stop telemarketing calls and junk faxes. With a site swathed in Old Glory and a Washington, D.C., address, it's easy to mistake Remove.org for some federally funded effort to reduce spam.

But there are a few things wrong with this picture. For one thing, the National Opt Out Directory isn't a federal program; it's just something Remove.org invented. The company is based in Portland, Oregon, not our nation's capital. Remove.org also claims to be a nonprofit, but it's not listed in the GuideStar nonprofits database. The guide to state spam laws found on the site is lifted verbatim from Spamlaws.com. Even worse, the site has promoted itself via spam--mass mailing a fictional endorsement from a "concerned parent."

Despite all this, Remove.org cofounder Jonathan Angel swears his service is for real. He admits the e-mail campaign was a mistake, says he hopes to "have a presence in D.C." some day, and claims his company has been approved for nonprofit status but hasn't made it into the database yet. I'm not convinced, and neither is Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. On August 11, Cox gave Remove.org 10 days to prove that it hasn't violated state consumer-protection laws. Cox's spokesperson, Sage Eastman, says the site has responded, but "we are still awaiting substantive conversations with Remove.org."

Think globally?
Next, there's Global Removal, which charges $5 for every e-mail address you want despammed. The gimmick: It pays bulk mailers $1 for each name removed from their lists--but it pays only once, so the first bulker to delete your name pockets the cash, while everyone else gets nothing. Spammers agree to compare their lists to the one at Global Removal, theoretically ensuring that your name gets removed from the lists of all of their advertising partners.

Of course, once the spammers collect the cash, there's nothing to keep them from continuing to sell your name despite their agreement with Global Removal. The Global Removal site is a bit funky, as well. It includes links to the legitimate Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (CAUCE), making it seem like the sites are affiliated (they're not). The site's FAQ claims "you will notice a reduction in spam," but a disclaimer on the sign-up form states "insertion into the Global-Removal [sic] database does not guarantee me that I will receive less unsolicited commercial e-mail." And, like Remove.org, the service is advertised via spam--in this case, an unsubscribe link affixed to the bottom of their partners' e-mail messages.

CEO Tom Jackson says his site already has thousands of subscribers in its database and partnerships with some of the biggest spammers on the planet, who, he says, are desperate to get rid of the whiners, complainers, and antispam activists who make their lives miserable. "Everyone wins," Jackson says.

But antispammers don't feel like winners. Spamhaus's Steve Linford says such services are outright scams and notes that Global Removal's site is hosted by Bulk ISP Corporation, a notorious haven for spammers. SpamCop's Julian Haight says even if Global Removal's scheme worked as advertised, he would never pay "protection money" to spammers. Ray Church of the CAUCE calls them "cynical attempts to trick people into paying for spam relief when there's nothing these private organizations can do to make spammers use those lists."

Would I pay $5 or $10 to reduce my spam intake? Sure, if I thought it were legit--and neither of these sites has convinced me.