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Feds Cracking the Whip on Spammers

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the little-to-the-left-please dept.

Britano writes "Fox News is reporting that the FTC has started to go after spammers and online scammers. So the governement has finally started on the side of the consumer. "The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that is has created a nationwide task force that has already brought 63 law enforcement actions against Web-based scams ranging from auction frauds to bogus cancer-curing sites." Hey, this way we don't have to spend our own money on fighting this problem!"

6 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. spammers or scammers? by room101 · · Score: 5, Informative

    From what I have heard, it isn't so much spammers as scammers. They are shutting down the illegal scams. If you have a real business, but use spam to advertise your product, I haven't read anything to indicate that they are being targeted.

    --
    room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
    (they always break you eventually)
    1. Re:spammers or scammers? by Violet+Null · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the article, it seems that they're also targetting spammers that don't offer a way to opt-out; those with 'remove' links in their emails that are dead, for instance.

    2. Re:spammers or scammers? by n9hmg · · Score: 2, Informative

      I assume you're kidding about the opt out.
      I used to appreciate the inclusion of options to opt out of spam, but noticed that it didn't seem to help.
      As an experiment, I created a user (Not a new hotmal or yahoo address... those seem to be immediately published), and as that user, followed the unsubsubscribe instructions. That user promptly began recieving spam, and its only action was to request to not receive spam.
      Sure, there're probably some spammers that actually do the opt out, but even of those who do, they stop sending you spam themselves, while adding you to the list of validated email addresses they compile and sell to other spammers.

  2. mailto:UCE@FTC.GOV by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Informative
    On the FTC web site they state:

    If you would like to forward unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) to the Commission, please send it directly to UCE@FTC.GOV without using this form.


    So, add that to Securities and Exchange commissions abuse site enforcement@sec.gov and you have some good places to forward your spam.

    Send all "Great new stock tip" crap to the SEC, send all the ripoff products to the FTC, and copy Spamcop on everything, and maybe we can crush these bastards.

    (Hey, by placing these addresses on a public site like /., they are likely to get harvested by the spammers....)

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  3. David L. Walker by young-earth · · Score: 3, Informative

    Apparently the state of Washington is already going after this Walker guy, as of last October. So the feds are a little slower, at least they've jumped on the bandwagon...

    --
    Got Wisdom?
  4. Link to FTC's own press release by Seth+Finkelstein · · Score: 5, Informative
    The FTC's own press release is at

    http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/04/spam.htm

    Plenty of further links to PDF's of the FTC's spam actions.

    Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)