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FTC vs Spammers
binaryDigit writes "The San Jose Mercury News has an article on the FTC getting ready to take action on an (alleged) spammer. 'The Federal Trade Commission said today that after receiving about 46,000 complaints it had asked a federal judge to halt the operation.' Too bad it took 46000 complaints to prompt some action, but at least some action is being taken. The FTC will focus on the "deception" involved (innocent and misleading subject lines, bogus (but real) from/reply to addresses, etc)."
after receiving about 46,000 complaints
You've got to wonder why they didn't wait for 100,000.Microsoft please hi
It's a shame that nowhere in the article does the FTC even imply that the spammer will be sent to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
evil adrian
Hopefully Mr. Westby will heretofore be "Lonely with Guido" in a minimum security facility for at least a few years.
We can only hope.
This is the obligatory SPAM thread plug for bayesian filtering.
If you're not already doing it, give it a go in one of its many forms.
I've been using POPFile for ages and it works a treat.
...if we get 46,000 complaints about Rick Berman, the FTC will take some action!
Your paranoia is about as subtle as the alien probe in your neck.
Possibly uce@ftc.gov? That's the address I've been sending them to.
"Want in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first." - My Dad
The FTC has become a joke lately. Even Congress thinks so (on the issue of privacy).
From credit to business mergers to privacy, and, yes, spam, the FTC seems to always screw up something. (While the companies were busy forgetting due diligence, you can bet the FTC was, too...)
They'll likely compile a list of all the email addresses that were spammed to and make them available to spammers.
Now that's my government working for me!
justen
Y'know, it's funny how while laws might require them to have an address to contact to become unsubscribed from the list, I'm wondering where the enforcement is. Or, where they're required to have a working address?
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Oh cmon, these people are so picky. What sort of shut-in do you have to be to consider sex with dogs and horses "sexually explicit"?
Sheesh.
If this article confuses you, don't worry. It was posted yesterday in a much clearer fashion.
... but the other 54,000 complaints turned out to be spam.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
At least Ashcroft hasn't labeled spammers as enemy combatants engaged in cyberterrorism and shipped them all off to Guantonomo Bay without a trial -- yet.
Not yet is right -- what if those spammers are trying to sell Weapons of Ass Destruction?
evil adrian
We've seen info on some spammers with their mansions and high priced lifestyles paid for by spam revenues here on /.
As long as they are hit with simple fines or only shut down temporarily, or only forced to change their tactics, they'll keep going. They make too much money to stop.
They'll only stop when sending spam costs more than their rewards. When they are fined enough or sued for enough that they lose their expensive new houses and other trappings of luxery, then they'll think about it.
In the meantime, don't expect the FTC or anyone from the Bush administration to do anything more than slap the hand of anyone making a good deal of money.
Okay, so my bash script was responsible for 32,767 of those, who was the other guy?
The article didn't mention how many minutes it took for the FTC to get these 46k complaints...
Yeah, that's just what we need -- governments passing laws to outlaw things that the majority of the population doesn't like. I wonder other unpopular things they're looking at banning. At least Ashcroft hasn't labeled spammers as enemy combatants engaged in cyberterrorism and shipped them all off to Guantonomo Bay without a trial -- yet.
Spoken like a true spammer.
The government has a long history of regulating how a business advertises. Perhaps you long for the day when a business could completely lie in its advertising, but I don't.
A slashdot article FTC Encourages Consumers to Forward Them Spam was posted on September 7, 2002 stating that the FTC wanted people to forward them spam at uce@ftc.gov.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
I run a small mail server with a dozen or so accounts. I have been using spamassassin for quite a while and it has been awesome.
However, there have been a slew of recent spams that have made it through. The subject lines are simple things such as "Hello". This is also the same subject line of ALL of my mother's emails; after all, that's how she answers the phone. The content is nothing more than an image tag pointing to a screenshot of the ad. Spamassassin doesn't complain since there is not enough wrong with the email - they usually score around 1 or 2 (which is way too low to set a threshold, 5 is reasonable). I could alter the scoring rules, but that would create way too many false positives since many emails are just links to political cartoons and the like.
I don't think bayesian filtering would help the problem.
I keep forwarding them to uce@ftc.gov. Maybe I'll submit the 46,000th entry and win a prize!
Here's the actual FTC announcement...
Why do I h8 apple?
Is it possibly for stories to be posted without someone's cynical or uninformed opinion? Yes, I realize this is Slashdot but it is beyond annoying at this point. How does the submitter know what the relevance of the number of complaints is? Maybe the FTC has some minimum number of people that must complain before they take action and many of the complaints were from the same person.
This happened about 2 weeks ago.
Our internal email in our office scans incoming and outgoing mail for viruses, spam, etc. Some spam slips through. In this case it was one of the numerous increase penile length spams.
When an email that is sent out and is blocked for some reason we are automatically notified. In this case someone forwarded the penile lotion lengther spam back to his home account so presumably he could read it later at home and perhaps try the product. This time it actually caught the spam going out when he tried forwarding it.
This "someone" was the president of our company. So far he hasn't asked us why the email he forwarded didn't go through. Of course we'll know if he eventually got it to go through when he starts wearing a loin cloth to work.
- Because the "Married But Lonely" spam forges the identity of the sender, it is
unclear whether Westby sends the spam himself or whether he employs someone else
to send it. Even if he does hire someone to send the spam, he is still liable
for these practices. Westby is liable for deceptive or unfair practices he engages
in himself or for those of his employees or agents who are acting on his behalf.
Under the FTC Act, a principal is liable for misrepresentations made by agents
with actual or apparent authority to make such representations, regardless of
any unsuccessful efforts by the principal to prevent such misrepresentations.
- See Southwest Sunsites, Inc. v. FTC, 785 F.2d 1431, 1438-39 (9th Cir. 1986);
FTC v. Skybiz.com, Inc., 2001 WL 1673645, at *9 (N.D. Okla. Aug. 31, 2001);
FTC v. Five-Star Auto Club, Inc., 97 F. Supp. 2d 502, 527 (S.D.N.Y. 2000).
It is inappropriate for a principal to "`reap the fruits from their [agents']
acts and doings without incurring such liabilities as attach thereto."' Skybiz.com,
2001 WL 1673645, at *9 (quoting Goodman v. FTC, 244 F.2d 584, 591-92 (9th
Cir. 1957)).
Note what the FTC is saying. They don't even have to prove that the business being advertised by spam paid the spammer. If someone benefitted from the spam, the beneficiary is liable.If a court agrees, as is likely, you don't sue spammers any more. You go after the deep pocket - the business being advertised. This is going to bring spamming on behalf of legitimate businesses to a screeching halt.