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FTC Adopts New Rule For Sexually Explicit Spam
enforcer999 writes "As you know, the CAN SPAM ACT preempted many state laws that were tougher on spammers. For instance, many of the laws that were enacted by states included a requirement that sexually explicit SPAM be labeled as such. The FTC, in charge of adopting rules, came up with a new rule that will require sexually explicit SPAM to be labeled as such. Hmm? I think the states were already trying to do this before the Federal government preempted them. Anyway, I wonder if it will work?"
without being a standard label of some kind it'll be useless, I need to be able to keep my kids from seeing it, like being labeled SEXUALLY EXPLICIT is going to keep my 14 yr old from clicking it.
What defines sexually explicit?? There are some cases where it is obvious and some where it is iffy. Isn't it like sexual harrassment and in the eye of the beholder. Or would they use a rating system like movies??
Evolution or ID?
It will work with some porno spam, because some people want porno, and people actually selling high quality porno want people to decide to buy not be tricked into a cascade of pop-ups. And it will not work for some, but since they're incorporated in the Cayman islands and forging mail to be flsuhed out of chinese servers.
But wait till Jr. signs up for his first Victoria's secret catalogue, and his born again mom get Johnny Cochran....
It is meant to be redundant. Redundancy and sarcasm come across better spoken than written.
I hate sigs.
Besides look at how hard they try to spoof mail filters. I doubt if they are going to get scared by this law. Already we arre seeing spam with a mixture of words in it that doesn't trip the mail filters. I don't think the answer is in red-tape.
Humans have such a good sense of humor!
The rules say the subject must be in ASCII. They should have said "7-bit US-ASCII". Still, it's probably a non-starter. I can't see a single spammer complying with this.
For one thing, simple Darwinian competition means that spammers who comply will be at a disadvantage to those who do not, and will thus be eliminated.
Regulation does not prevent crime, it just moves it elsewhere. Crime - like spamming - must be prevented by making it uneconomical.
It should be a federal crime to _advertise_ via spammers, via spyware, and via trojans under the basic regulation covering consumer rights. Hitting the advertisers rather than the spammers would have a much greater impact.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Anyway, I wonder if it will work?
No.
The spammers don't care about the laws of the U.S. when they can just spoof the headers into thinking they came from outside the U.S.; and the U.S., despite whatever delusions my duly elected officials may be believing right now, can't enforce something like this on spam originating outside the States.
An issue like spam-- or any 'regulation' of the internet-- cannot be done piecemeal, on a country-by-country basis. Internet laws, in order to be effective, must be issued, interpreted, and enforced by an international body; otherwise the offender can simply research the laws of other countries and find somewhere where his action is either implicitly legal or not explicitly illegal. The U.N. does not count in this regard, as it was not created to be an international police agency. Either a new agency must be created, an existing group like Interpol must take responsibility, or the world needs to collectively shut up and take it.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
I don't like that. Anything that says "It's OK to send SPAM, so long as..." sounds bad to me. It's some kind of positive reinforcement to spammers... But maybe I'm not flexible enough? I just think I shouldn't be forced to use my bandwidth and CPU time to get a message and check that it's SPAM, even if "it's always tagged as such".
As we so often see spammers have no morals, ethics or are even interested in paying the slightest attention to the law. To me this is another example of a law making body making a new law to make themselves and the techingnorant feel good. This is a complete waste of joe taxpayers (i.e. MY) money.
Stolen sig below:
Karma: Chameleon. Comes and goes.
"Action is the thing that escapes most people. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Great actions are few and far in between.
I'm with you on this, but I thought of something interesting. If you made it illegal to advertise with illegal spam, then couldn't spammers extort money from legitimate businesses by threatening to advertise on their behalf?
It's an odd twist, but nothing like this is below the spammers.
Yes, the business would probably eventually prevail in a court of law, especially if they could prove that they were the victim of an extortion attempt, but the hassle would be expensive in and of itself.
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
It's the spammers laughing their a$$e$ off.
Until one or more of them are caught and fined HEAVILY or get thrown in jail where they get to be someone's hot, tasty biotch, they will continue to spray their garbage all over the net.
Legislating that someone has to do something is meaningless unless there is enforcement.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Like the US?
Requiring a warning in spam mail is clearly a away of explicitly ALLOWING spam.
I can't see a single spammer complying with this.
That is what we want. We want laws they can, and most likely will, break. Then throw them in front of the court facing 200 million counts of breaking this law. Watch the spammer plea bargain a short, 1 or 2 year prison sentence when faced with a possible 700 year sentence.
The U-CAN-SPAM act may have been a watered down compromise, but there is already action being taken against the worst spammers. They might be able to hide their IP address by using trojan nets, but the authorities are finding them by following the money trail, not the electronic trail.
With Asscroft in charge of the New Morality in the U.S., expect to see him going after all those Nasty Pornagraphers the day after this rule goes into effect. You can bet the DoJ already has files ready to go, just waiting for a new rule so they can establish heavier charges. The worst pr0n spammers will end up in jail, and that will be a warning to the others.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I wonder if it will work?
They never did stop truckers from using profanity over CB radios regardless of FCC regulations....
If a law is not enforceable, then it just don't matter....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
We do? We want more government controls? Wow. Not from where I am standing...
We are so worried about spam that we are going to through everything out the window to stop it. The more and more you let the government take over the more and more YOU will also lose in the future.
This law is, again, very narrow. They will get around it. Our laws do not protect what they can do from overseas, with spam relay bots (hijacked, for hire, or otherwise), and with ficticious names (which, BTW, laws concerning the DNS records are worthless).
So, let's follow 9/11's lead everywhere and stamp out these criminals at the cost of our own liberties.
Nice.
The religious right kooks are paving the way - just as their tool John Ashcroft has been promising and proclaiming for 4 years now - for an assault on pornography in general, and especially on the internet.
Spam is an issue that made it to government because it's a tech issue that everyone can understand on the face of it. And on the face of it everyone opposes it. Much like "war on drugs" or "war on copying" it provides an Evil Target for everyone to rally against that can never fully or truly be banished, and as such can be used as a long-term vehicle for pork projects of even the slightest relevance.
Mark my worthless anonymous words, seemingly-innocuous laws like this will be used as the framework for net anti-porn bills in the near future. Remember, the "innocuous" NET Act Clinton signed into law? Its "only purpose" was to "close a loophole". It yielded the DMCA in half a decade.
I certainly did not notice that CAN-SPAM became effective 1/1/04. Or actually, my filters are still filtering out a very similar number of messages.
Does anyone have information of some kind, if legislators think that this law actually worked?
As much as I would love to see spammers prosecuted, I doubt CAN-SPAM has done anything to reduce spam.
Alex
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
No. We want the existing legitimate government controls (i.e. "Don't steal services. If you do we will throw you in jail.") to be enforced.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
Thinking of some of the spam I've seen:
"Jane and her barn animals" - Illegal whether it has a disclaimer or not
"Jane does six guys" - sexual
"Jane's webcam" - sexual, but does it count if they manage to keep the email content itself down to 'innuendo' status (and the actual crappy pr0n being on a linked page).
"Enlarge your breasts/penis/etc. Viagara alternative, etc etc" - probably the greatest in volume of spam in contrast to the above, but does it qualify as sexual? Female/male enhancement tends to deal with sexual organs/performance but is not actually pornographic in content.
Really, it seems to me that the really nasty stuff is already illegal anyways (animals, underage, etc), and the majority of emails I get to my servers are in the nature of enhancements which may or may not count.
Seriously---why not have a legal definition of spam, then go after those that reap the benefits of spam...spammers are in it for the money and if it does not pay they would not do it. And , it might be hard to track spammers but by it's very nature the "spam sponsor" is trackable, usually via the web address. are there any legal issues that would stand in the way of blocking access to a site that sponsors spam? Although, I guess some would could pay a spammer to "promote" Bush2004.com and knock it off the net....any ideas to stop that?
http://www.geocities.com/sethseekstruth/great_out