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

Need we say it?

[bendelo]

Spammers lie, cheat and break the law. I can't see this being enforced succesfully.

Re:Great, but what about spam from outside?

[Robmonster]

This is the same counter given to every law that triesd to combat spam. They are always unenforcable.

I dont think there is ANYTHING that can be done by governments that will reduce spam levels. The spammers know its wrong, but they dont care.

If anything they will AVOID using these tags, a they know their emails will be filtered out if they include them. A spammer is after eyeballs on emails.

The real problem, as ever, are the people who BUY services from spammers. Cut off their income.

Same arguments for an unsolvable problem.

RM

It seems

[Mz6]

It seems that the FTC thinks that SPAM is handled.

- We don't get any uncolicited emails anymore thanks to their CAN-SPAM act.

- Life is great and it's easy to remove yourself from these lists if you don't want their emails.

How about trying to come up with rules to STOP and regulate unwanted spam altogether before adopting rules to regulate sexually explicit ones? Once the rules come to completeley stop this, non of these new rules even matter!

Re:Great, but what about spam from outside?

[metlin]

Sure, but the point is most porn spam is asking you to visit site foo-bar or something like that. Or maybe buy a product from some place.

And anyway, the sites that the spammers link to can always plead ignorance. *shrug*

Hey, I asked these spammers to help me out, but they did not stick to the rules. Don't blame us.

And maybe this will see even spam being outsourced ;)

I can see the weasling now...

[zulux]

Headers will come in mutiple forms that will fullfill the letter of the law, but attempt to foil basic filters:

[SÈXUA?Y-EXPLI?IT]: More Pr0n for you.
SeExUally-Explicit: More pr0n for you:
More pr0n for you (Sexually-Explicit)
[Sexually]-[Explicit]: More pr0n for you

Anywhere in the subject line?

[lightspawn]

So if this substring can be found after 300 characters of spaces, is the spammer still complying?

Here's why

[nanojath]

Here's why the porn industry doesn't like it - because porn spam is ready made for people with "impulse control problems." They don't really care if you, person with reasonable self-control, deletes their spam, as it cost them whatever ridiculous fraction of a cent to send. They really don't like it if Mr. self-recognized porno compulsive can filter their stuff out.

Re:Great, but what about spam from outside?

[mcc]

This is something I mostly bring up in the debate regarding general spam, but something that is very important to keep in mind is that if we can force spam to originate from outside of the United States, this is a major win. The fact is that every existing form of technical spam prevention-- blacklists, whitelists, graylists, filtering, etc-- are made noticeably easier if one can make assumptions geographically limiting the locations of spammers. Even if by "geographically limit" we just mean "outside the U.S.".

The thing is though I don't know how applicable my argument here is in this particular case, since as far as I'm aware (?) you don't filter porn spam any differently than the rest of it. However, spammers seem to be very loath to subscribe to any kind of law or decency if it means more work for them. Perhaps some spammers will get themselves screwed out of business because they don't follow this law and ISPs sue them.. a thinning of the herd, if you will.

I really don't see

[Evets]

I really don't see why the US needs to force their sexual discomfort on the rest of the world. US regulations on the web (or any countries for that matter) are not welcome as far as I'm concerned. The internet for the first 10 years I used it represented a truly free society. It seems now that it is a society being pillaged by governments around the world.

One way spam fighting.

[miffo.swe]

The best way possible to fight spam must be to fine the companies marketed by spam. Someone surely forks the dough to get spam invading everyones mailbox. I have a hard time imagine someone sending spam just for fun. By cutting off the money the incentive to spam is reduced and it should wither and become a much smaller problem.

Filtering and making a new shiny mail system dont help. All it does is make the spammers invent new ways to send spam.

What makes spam such a big industry must be the companies who pays for it, go get them!

Porn Industry != Spammers

[Jonathan Quince]

I don't know why the porn industry is complaining about this,

I can say with some certainty that the "porn industry" isn't complaining about this. All of the best affiliate programs enforce TOS that prohibit spam. (You spam, you get shut down and lose the $$$ in your account that hasn't yet been paid out.) Don't insult the legitimate porn industry by linking them with spammers.

Saying that the "porn industry" protests this regulation is like saying CVS or Walgreens protests regulations on Viagra spam or OfficeMax protests regulations on inkjet cartridge spam. There are legitimate players in the industry, and there are scam artists feeding at the bottom. Guess which group is responsible for the spam.

Of course, none of this means anything about the regulation itself, which will most certainly be ineffectual at reducing spam or filtering porn spam. IME, the only tool that can produce a real impact on spam is a 2x4 applied forcefully to a spammer's skull.

Re:The law IS having an effect

[letxa2000]

In this day and age, anyone who isn't using Bayesian filtering for spam protection is just begging for spam. In this day and age, anyone that claims that Bayesian filters can't solve the current spam problem has either tried the wrong Bayesian-based product or doesn't know what he/she is talking about. And those that say Bayesian filtering won't work "forever" because spam will evolve to get around it are preaching gloom and doom about a future that is far from certain.

I've been using Bayesian filtering for 1-1/2 years and my success rate just keeps inching up. In May of last year I was at 99.5% success. My Bayesian corpus has grown in the last year and so far this month I'm averaging 99.98% success--only two have gotten through, and one of those was in a foreign language. I can't even remember the last time a pornographic spam got past my Bayesian filter.

And in the last year we've seen silly attempts to get around Bayesian filters, such as packing the message with lots of random words, or excerpts from books or the Constitution or what have you. Time and time again those messages actually get a higher Bayesian score than they would have if they had just left the random words out.

There is still no known effective way to get around Bayesian filtering. I personally don't think there will be a way around them, but regardless: Bayesian has been the answer for nearly two years and shows no sign of weakening in the near future. USE IT!.