UK Spam Controlled by UK's Advertising Standards Agency

Goth Biker Babe writes "The Advertising Standards Agency in the UK has outlined new rules which govern text advertisements including SMS spam, e-mail spam, and web pop-ups according to the BBC. All unsolicited advertising must now clearly identify itself as advertising. This is as a direct result of the number of complaints about junk texts, e-mail and web pop-ups. All thought the article doesn't mention it a BBC news report this morning stated that unsolicited advertising must now be opt-in rather than opt-out."

Comments

Pop ups

[rf0]

I just find this ironic

The BBC news article says:

"The new code also covers banner and pop-up advertising on the internet, though not a company's claims on its own website."

What do you get when you goto to ASA website? Why a popup of course :)

Rus

Re:why would this reduce spam??

[stratjakt]

I think this is a perfect compromise to the problem.

If every ad said "Advertisement: " in the subject line, then you'd only read them if you wanted to, or filter them out easily, or have the ISP filter them easily.

I really dont care if people want to advertise their stuff to me, I just resent the crap that wastes your time trying to look like legitimate mail, and the outright scams.

Unsolicited?

[MacAndrew]

Doesn't your spam, like mine, usually claim you signed up to get it? Often with some meta-list like GREATDEALZ that you can't possibly unsubscribe from, and unsubcribing removes you from this vendor's list only, that is, if unsubscribing ever worked because it's either a scam or the account is shut down before you can reach it. Maybe I did consent, by not reading every word of a privacy policy that probably didn't exist anyway.

You can sense my cynicism. I think the rule makes sense, but question how much good it will do. Now, innovative enforcement I would be interested in. How about threatening to punish the originating ISP? Is it too much to require them to examine mass mailers, obtain a bond against abuse, and so on? After all, they provide the tools that make spam possible.

Unilateralism should spread

[Anonymous Coward]

I think every nation that thinks of itself as a subscriber to common decency should criminalize spam. Today the UK, tomorrow the US, Canada, Oz, France... eventually the evil ones will be forced to set up shop in Bolivia... it may be impossible to eradicate completely, but we should all petition our governments to act now.

Question - how much faster would the net be if there were no unsolicited junk flying back and forth?

That it is profitable...

[johndeaux]

I find it unbelievable that SPAM is still profitable for those sending it. On my last count I receive over 100 SPAM mails a day (I own multiple registered domains). If I did NOT use a filter I would forget email all together. With the shear number of unsolicited mails being sent out it just amazes me that anyone out there looks at them long enough to consider responding making it profitable for the senders.

SMS

[samhalliday]

i dont think this will effect email or web browsing any... but this is fantastic news none the less as previously it was only phone and mail which was registered, and if anyone sent you any advertisements in the UK (if you are on the TPS telephone preference service, or mail equivalent) you can get them in big shit for it... legally.

this is good becuase now i wont get any SMS's from my own provider who i dont care to listen to as i am sure a similar system will be implemented for SMS.

The advertisement companies will listen to this in the UK. on SMS you must give some form of UK contact details for sales (otherwise the text was wasted), and if you are spamming, you WILL be caught.

obviously with the international nature of the internet, this will not effect email spam, but at least you can complain to someone now if its .uk!

Re:Standards Agency has "Interesting" Standards

[Ambient Sheep]

Being from (and living in) the U.K. I wouldn't describe that advert as "very provocative". I largely agree with the ASA on that one: not on a billboard or a newspaper, but OK in a specialist magazine. Maybe we have different standards over here - I've heard that visitors from the USA are often surprised by the amount of sexual content in our media (although we have nothing compared to most of Europe), whereas we get surprised by the amount of violence in yours, especially during the daytime.