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.

Comments

So does Viagra Spam count?

[billstewart]

I get lots more mail about this than actual porn spam these days. Some of it's more explicit than others....

Why clutter the subject?

[photon317]

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???