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UK Spam Controlled by UK's Advertising Standards Agency

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the can-i-have-some-of-that dept.

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."

46 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. As if it will help. by Big+Mark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most of the spam I get (as a UK resident) comes from the US. Get them to clean up their act and spam would be dead.

    -Mark

    1. Re:As if it will help. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I take exception to that, I have been working diligently over the last few years producing spam in Vietnam, Korea, Tiawan, China and Japan, we've worked very hard to cultivate this regional stereotype especially faced with stiff competition from Nigerian fraudsters, give credit where it's due. Spam doesn't come from the US, it's merely targetted at countries with the most suspectably dumb and gullable people.

  2. Sounds good, but... by Dr.Enormous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...they're planning to enforce this how? Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think saying "don't spam" is going to mean much to the Nigerians who keep promising me untold riches. Still, I suppose you have to start somewhere.

    1. Re:Sounds good, but... by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Funny

      ....they're planning to enforce this how?

      The same way the UN enforces its resolutions.

      That is to say, if you don't obey this resolution.... Hey! You better had obey this resolution, or... um... or else... um... we're going to pass another resolution if you don't obey!

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    2. Re:Sounds good, but... by benito27uk · · Score: 5, Informative

      I agree its not going to stop email spam, but I think this is more aimed at text spam to mobile phones, companies are sending out spam texts to people and when they reply they send to premium rate phone numbers costing 50pence/ £1 a minute as these are uk numbers they will hopefully be able to reduce the amount of people - especially children replying to them and more companies like this one http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2223504.stm will get fined large amounts

    3. Re:Sounds good, but... by NexusTw1n · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a start. Spam is an international problem, and there is no chance that Korea or even US spammers are going to pay any attention to the ASA.

      But it is a start. About 5% of my spam is clearly UK based, companies offering to reduce my phone bill, or grey box PCs for 200 quid etc. Hopefully I can now stop this small percentage getting through.

      Bear in mind this is also for mobile text spam, which while not currently a massive problem, if not nipped in the bud could become a worse problem than email spam. Hopefully we'll see the ASA dishing out 50 grand fines , the US will see profit this gives the government and follow suit.

      --
      It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
    4. Re:Sounds good, but... by GammaTau · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...they're planning to enforce this how? Not that I don't appreciate the sentiment, but I don't think saying "don't spam" is going to mean much to the Nigerians who keep promising me untold riches. Still, I suppose you have to start somewhere.

      I assume you are thinking of e-mail instead of SMS messages to cell phones. The SMS messages can be traced accurately enough and thus whatever punishments laws or regulations set, they can be enforced.

    5. Re:Sounds good, but... by MrFredBloggs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "they're planning to enforce this how?"

      The ASA has no teeth. It's a self-regulatory body. If a member breaches it, they`ll be `told off` by the ASA, but there are no mandatory fines, and spammers will NOT ever be members of the - this is not a law.

      Nothing to see here.

    6. Re:Sounds good, but... by paulhar · · Score: 2, Funny

      Is that the 1024x768 resolution or the 800x600 resolution?

    7. Re:Sounds good, but... by jumpingfred · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I thought you could send an email to a machine at your cell phone service provider and this would then be sent to your phone as an SMS message. If this is true how can SMS be traced anybetter than email?

  3. why would this reduce spam?? by in_ur_face · · Score: 3, Insightful
    "All unsolicited advertising must now clearly identify itself as advertising."

    so now i'll get spam which says that it is spam...will this reduce the amount i get? I guess now I can have better email filters, but I dont think it is a real solution to the problem..

    1. Re:why would this reduce spam?? by stratjakt · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. ASA Weak and Feable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The ASA guidelines are voluntary not statutory, they're an industry body that has no legal power, the most they can do is pass a complaint over to Dept Trade & Industry when serious illegality has occured.

    Apparently the ASA had a massive increase in complaints regarding mobile txt messages, they went tenfold... from 6 to 60 complaints in a year! Anyway, by June I suspect not a single spam will enter my inbox... errr, right.

  5. Nice ... by Draoi · · Score: 2, Insightful
    .. but how does the ASA intend to enforce it seeing as most spam appears to originate from Chinese or south-American open relays/Spamhausen & is generally propagated by US companies?

    I'd like to think it's a step forward in the fight against spam but I'm not sure quite how ...

    --
    Alison

    "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein

  6. Not going to help by jjhplus9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Less than 1% of the spam that hits hour servers is from a source inside the UK.
    It is very hard indeed to imagine how this is going to help stem the flow of spam.
    The restrictions on banner addvertising is going to be interesting in practice.
    Anyone care to guesse how these regulations are going to be interpreted pragmatically?
    How will it affect already shrinking banner advert revenues?

  7. EU Regulations by Kr3m3Puff · · Score: 5, Informative

    Probally the main reason it doesn't mention that it needs to be Opt-In is because of EU Privacy rules, all unsolicted advertising is supposed to be Opt-In.

    All forms have to be written that you proactively allow sharing of your information, if you don't expressily give your consent, your information cannot be shared.

    The US could learn a lot from EU Privacy Laws.

    --
    D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
    1. Re:EU Regulations by cheeseflan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mod the parent up!

      Whenever I see yet another technical "fix" for spam I just wish that the USA would give it's citizens the right to own their data. EU citizens do - so we see spam coming from the USA and only a trickle from inside our own borders.

      We could then push to close the rest of the world out - and really drop the volume of spam...

      When are people going to stop offering me mortgages - in Dollars?

      --

      Pimping my Karma Whore since 1847.

    2. Re:EU Regulations by silasthehobbit · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I may be missing some big point here, but how can unsolicited mail be opt in? If I've opted in to receive it, then it's not unsolicited, is it? Or have I _really_ not got something basic here? There's also a telephone preference scheme over here in the UK which means that you're not supposed to get called at home by advertisers or marketeers, but it seems to have made little or no difference to how many calls I get. I'm suspicious of how well this will work, the ASA doesn't really have much power anyway, but it would be nice. The problem, however, may just move overseas. Heck, most of the crap I get is from the US anyway, so this won't help.

    3. Re:EU Regulations by Sheetrock · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Yours isn't the first comment I've seen mentioning the tidal wave of spam from the U.S., yet here in the middle of this great land I get spam coming from just about everywhere but America (and junk faxes 'from' the U.K. to boot.) Yet they all seem to use dollars too, or are pushing a pump-and-dump scheme with stocks on the NYSE/Nasdaq. Who would have thought spammers lie? :)

      I've pushed the idea before and I will again that one (meaningful) country needs to set the standard of no spam on a national level and use a scheme of border router filters (in the literal sense!) on SMTP traffic to block everything except from/to pairs whitelisted by citizens and SMTP traffic from countries that meet the no-spam standards. I doubt the U.S. would be the first adopter and frankly don't care -- it'd be a good kick to the ass to get our representatives serious about fixing things if the E.U. implemented something like this.

      There are an array of technical alternatives that could be strung together into a workable solution, but it involves an infrastructure update. I'm informed that this is about as likely to happen as the deployment of IPv6 and, therefore, am not holding my breath.

      --

      Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
      -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    4. Re:EU Regulations by myov · · Score: 2, Funny

      You know what the difference is between opt-in and opt-out? One has a disclaimer claiming to be opt-in.

      You are receiving this message because you opted-in when we harvested your address or randomly hit your mail server looking for accounts. Or we found your address somewhere else. You may unsubscribe by clicking on this link which will send you more spam, or email this inactive address.

      --
      I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
  8. Great, but... by meringuoid · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ... a UK law will only affect spam sent by UK citizens. I don't get much of that. I see a whole hell of a lot of stuff from the US, and occasionally from China or Korea (not just from America _via_ China, but actually sent by the Chinese); hardly ever anything from Europe.

    The only thing I see from British spammers is pyramid schemes and the guy on Blueyonder who keeps sending out virus mails. Hopefully they'll get whacked a bit harder now, which can only be a good thing :-)

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  9. Unsolicited opt-in? by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 2, Funny
    unsolicited advertising must now be opt-in rather than opt-out

    If you have to "opt-in" to your spam, then how is that unsolicited?

    --
    Very popular slashdot journal for adul
  10. ASA != Government by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're an industry self-regulatory body. This means that respectable advertisers won't spam, but mainsleaze was never the big problem. Pyramid frauds and penis pill salesmen don't care what the ASA says.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  11. can someone explain this? by brmic · · Score: 5, Funny

    And the rule which stops car advertisers encouraging anti-social or irresponsible driving has been strengthened - now they must not even condone bad driving.

    does it really say that before the Advertising Standards Authority (whoever that is) stepped in, car advertisers in the UK promoted road rage and hoped to sell cars by claiming you could hit children and old ladies without the slightest dent to your cherished chrome bumper?

  12. Unsolicited advertising must be opt in by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Funny
    ...unsolicited advertising must be opt in...


    Unsolicited advertising means advertising you did not ask for.

    But to opt in means you have asked for it.

    But if you have asked for it, it is not unsolicited.

    LOGIC ERROR: Norman, co-ordinate
    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
  13. Re:What about advertisers outside the UK? by arivanov · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That is the serious difference between control on the SPAM level and trader level. ASA involvement can be on the trader level. This means that they may directly force the trader (if a UK) company to restrain from SPAM practices and they may also issue such a decision.

    It is true that their decisions do not have the force of a legal act. But AFAIK there have been practically no cases in recent UK history for a company to try to disobey them.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  14. friend recommendation by sublime99 · · Score: 2

    nothing like government trying to do the work of the people.....Once the government starts making regulations on what you can and can not see on the internet. Next thing you know there will be your own personal government employee typing in urls for you and reading your email BEFORE you to make sure it is not of an unsolicated fashion....

    What next popup-ad are going to need to say Unsoliciated popup ad in big bold letters then show the ad?

  15. Is this why God created (gasp) Government? by release7 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nobody ever said Government was perfect (and I defy you to find an institution that is), but dammit, it's the only thing we have to bring order and law to a world of chaos. The anti-government, anti-regulation libertarian rhetoric that has captured the popular mind in the last couple of decades has got to come to an end before the spam problem will be solved in the US. The UK is on the right track.

    --

    <a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>

    1. Re:Is this why God created (gasp) Government? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Funny

      Actually, God created government so that government could create the Net. Spam was an unintended consequence -- kinda like when God said, "Let there be beer," I'm sure He wasn't thinking of Budweiser.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  16. This is basically self-protection by Doctor+Hu · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The ASA is a trade association that draws up voluntary guidelines to be followed by companies who care about being seen to be 'responsible'. Enough people are now sufficiently irritated by the floods of unsolicited dreck that it's now in the interests of the major advertisers to scale back their use of the mechanism, so lo and behold the ASA comes up and says 'you shouldn't do that'.

    The effects are likely to be marginal at best. Most large companies are smart enough not to irritate potential customers this way. The slimebrains that peddle Big Man and Easy Money snake-oil won't take any notice. Maybe it will have some effect on the armies of small companies that are competing to replace your windows with new! improved! double-glazed! fittings! - we can but hope.

    I can't help being reminded that it was an early Anglo-saxon ruler, Kanute, who famously ordered the tide not to come in.

    1. Re:This is basically self-protection by ThaReetLad · · Score: 2, Informative

      Everyone get this wrong about Kanute. It is often assumed that he was a power crazy fool with a God complex. Quite the opposite. Kanute ordered the tide not to come in to prove to his people that he was just a man and the tide would pay no more attention to him than anyone else.

      --
      You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
  17. Not original, but correct.. by CmdrTostado · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If no-one responded to spam, there would be no market for the "service" and the industry would just dry up and blow away, some-one out there is replying to the junk. Where there is a demand, there will be a service. Don't reply to spam..

    I don't like green eggs and spam Sam I am..

  18. Catch the spam... by baldwang · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you're interested, I now use a spam filter which works pretty good. It's a peer-to-peer filter, so the definitions you create for spam are shared across all users, and vice versa. Since I started using it, I've seen very little spam in my inbox. Unfortunately, I think it only plugs into outlook, but I'm not sure. Maybe somebody here can reverse engineer this baby and pump a new cross-client/platform net...

    Here it is

  19. Pop ups by rf0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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

    --
    Cheap UK and US VPS
  20. uh-huh by Captain_Stupendous · · Score: 3, Insightful

    How exactly does "unsolicited" work with "opt-in"? I thought unsolicited was "opt-out" by definition?

    --


    I am alone, yet I also surf the universal backwash of undifferentiated Being, which is LOVE.
  21. Intentify as spam by broothal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great, so now I can add a procmail filter to remove all mails beginning with [ADV] and voila - Bob's your uncle and I'm free of spam.

    Oh yeah - I also need to filter (adv)..and [AD]...and [-ad-]... and {A - D - V - E - E - R - T - I - S - M - E - N - T } and... well, you get my drift. The point is this:

    Spam that identifies itself as spam is still spam, and I already know it's spam without a prefix. So what good is it?
    With a standard prefix, Joe Luser can use his Outlook to filter the spam after it has been downloaded. Now, those who does that, wouldn't buy anything from spammers anyway. So the spammer doesn't care. To accomplish his return rate, he just sends out another million emails.. and another one.

    There's only one law that will ever work. Don't send commercial email unless the receiver asked for it. All the other suggestions and implementations are just jumping through hoops.

    /Christian

  22. But information wants to be FREE!! by goldspider · · Score: 3, Funny
    These advertisers shouldn't be viewed as capitalist pigs trying to peddle worthless products upon a frustrated public.

    They should be revered for the incredible volume of information they liberate and release to all of us on a daily basis!

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  23. Unsolicited? by MacAndrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  24. Pax Britannica by PD · · Score: 2, Funny

    That must be the UK's plot to take over the world (again). With a few more laws like that, I think there will be a popular movement here in the former colonies to rejoin the Queen's domain!

    --
    If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
  25. unsolicited opt-in?? by matt4077 · · Score: 2, Funny

    is that something like a bluish red?

    --
    Fleur de Sel
  26. Facts by jaavaaguru · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm all for this. One thing about the article though:

    If an email list is opt-in, then it's hardly unsolicited.

    --
    Follow me
  27. Big deal! by jmerelo · · Score: 2

    Will koreans and russians follow suit?
    I must learn to spell "advertisement" in all these languages, so that I can filter them!

    --
    It's just a BloJJ
  28. That it is profitable... by johndeaux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  29. SMS by samhalliday · · Score: 3, Interesting
    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!

  30. from/to pair whitelists by gordie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In principle I like your ideas, but I see a very real flaw in the from/to pair whitelist concept. People sometimes want email from people who's from address they do not know. Let's say we meet at a convention, have a discussion about your ideas on spam blocking and I want to hear more. I give you my card which has my email address on it (an address for just that purpose). I write down your email address with the intention of adding it to my whitelist so that you can send to me. Then by the time I get back to the office, I've forgotten about you and fail to add you to my whitelist. Your email is rejected and I fail to get the information that I actually wanted from you! - Now imagine salespeople that hand out cards to potential clients (some international) so the client can at his or her discretion, contact them. The client may not wish to give a from address to the salesperson, but may wish to contact them at some later date. With your process, their email will be blocked and the company could/would loose business. The business community would not hold still for that, for long. Cause a man to loose money and you can be sure he will not be quiet about it. Enough of them yelling and governments notice, next thing you know, no matter how good the technology, how well intentioned the process, it will be forcibly removed.

  31. Re:Standards Agency has "Interesting" Standards by Ambient+Sheep · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.