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!

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.

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.