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FTC Porn Spam Regulation Now in Effect
gManZboy writes "The AP (through Yahoo) is reporting that the FTC is now requiring that all sexually explicit spam carry the wholly original 'SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:' moniker in the subject line. I don't know why the porn industry is complaining about this, it seems like now everyone who really wants porn spam (not I!) can finally create a filter that delivers it to their inbox, highlighted, and bolded!" The FTC's regulation is available, and so is Slashdot's earlier story.
I get lots more mail about this than actual porn spam these days. Some of it's more explicit than others....
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Putting SEXUALLY EXPLICIT in the title only makes it more annoying when you open your email."
Assuming spammers do actually follow this requirement, you could simply set a filter to send those emails to the trash.
For the unlucky few not affected by the plague I
include some actual spam subjects:
SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: I'm sore from too much action
SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:This looks like Fun
SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: You Got lucky This Morning
SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: There's a slut on your desk...
SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: Sexy company while you work
Out of a small sample set of 200 general emails,
I would estimate that about 5% to 10% of
applicable messages are compliant.
But in a commercial setting things change. If I'm a company that makes Foo Bar, and if I say that I'd asked this marketing company to market Foo for me, and they broke the law, what can the judge do?
When you are just a manufacturer, and your distributors/marketers make a mistake, you cannot be held liable. Not unless they are all the same corporation.
If I hire a man to sell my product and he goes and rapes a girl (or a guy, depending upon his preference), I cannot be held responsible. Would a similar analogy not apply here?
The Subject line is for human perusal, not for machine categorization. The proper way to implement such a thing has always been an X-header in the email's headers. You could use this to categorize all types of junk spam, allowing mail clients and mail service providers to filter them at will.
Imagine something like:
X-UCE:
Where type is "porn", "commercial", etc... or even use PICS-like content-rating systems in there too.
Why the Subject field???
11*43+456^2
"If I'm a company that makes Foo Bar, and if I say that I'd asked this marketing company to market Foo for me, and they broke the law, what can the judge do?"
This would be dependent on the judicial system, but it could be that it is the responsibility of your company to acquire some knowledge of who you are entering a business agreement with.
If the marketing company had a history of illegal and/or unethical conduct that could be shown in court to be relatively easy to uncover, and the conduct is related to the nature of your business agreement then you could considered culpable.
"If I hire a man to sell my product and he goes and rapes a girl (or a guy, depending upon his preference), I cannot be held responsible."
This could also depend on the situation. Off the top of my head example: You hired a guy as a door-to-door salesman for women's products. He rapes a women on his sales route. During the investigation it is discovered that he had prior convictions for rape that would have appeared during a routine background investigation. From this prosecutor determines that you're company either:
didn't do a background investigation -> low chance of being held culpable but still possible in a jury trial
or
did a background investigation but hired the guy for some reason -> higher chance of being held culpable even more likely in a jury trial
Also, in some countries, civil cases don't have the same requirements with regards to evidence as criminal courts.
-- "Someone's gotta go back for a shit-load of dimes."
No. See page 7, section ii - "Placement of the Mark in the Subject Line" of this PDF which is linked from the FTC page. The mark has to be in the beginning of the subject line.
Follow your Euro bills at EBT
Those "Untrackable" spammers are selling a product, a product via credit card. Don't think too hard on that one.
Yeah, but unfortunately the CAN-SPAM law only allows you to take action against the person/agency that sent the spam. It superceded better laws that let you take action against the company that hired the spammer. So it doesn't matter if you can 'track' down the product and the company/person selling the product -- as long as they hired an outside party to send the spam, they're free to do so again...and again...and again....
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'