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FTC Porn Spam Regulation Now in Effect

Posted by michael on from the kmail-filter-already-added dept.

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.

14 of 279 comments (clear)

  1. Great, but what about spam from outside? by metlin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Great idea, but what about spam originating from other countries?

    First off, there is no assurance that spammers will adhere to this in the first place - if they are using trojan-ed systems and the like, there is no way you would be track them down.

    Sure, some of them may, but if there is any way they can hide behind the anonymity mask, there is no reason they have to adhere to this.

    Secondly, most of the spam I receive are not even from the US. Most of the stuff is from Asia or worse, eastern Europe. Do these regulations apply to them, too?

    From the release (emphasis mine) --

    The final rule follows the intention of the CAN-SPAM Act to protect email recipients from unwitting exposure to unwanted sexual images in spam, by requiring this mark to be included both in the subject line of any e-mail message that contains sexually oriented material, and in the electronic equivalent of a "brown paper wrapper" in the body of the message.

    What is _any_ really? Is there a way FTC can regulate spam from other countries, or is it just for intra-US spam? If it's just the latter, it isn't much use. On the other hand, if it's not, how on Earth are they going to enforce it?

    1. Re:Great, but what about spam from outside? by stephenisu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      NEWS FLASH!! This just in..

      Those "Untrackable" spammers are selling a product, a product via credit card. Don't think too hard on that one.

      --
      Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
    2. Re:Great, but what about spam from outside? by M.+Silver · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      I dunno about that. WalMart got held liable (unless it's been overturned on appeal and I didn't hear) for defective children's apparel when they couldn't produce the name of the manufacturer, who otherwise would have been liable. I don't see why you can't hold somebody responsible for the way they market your product. If you didn't get a complete rundown of how they were going to do it beforehand, that's your own fault.

      --

      Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
  2. My issues with this... by garcia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    a) Putting SEXUALLY EXPLICIT in the title only makes it more annoying when you open your email. My gf uses AOL and her inbox is full of this shit daily. I would rather not see SEXUALLY EXPLICIT 100x over and over again as I scroll down the list.

    b) Ok, so they force people to "scroll down" before seeing the image. What about people that have large monitors and email fullscreen? Do we have a set number of 100000000 lines before you see it? What about those of us that filter out white-space in emails so that we don't have to scroll through 100 pages of shit to get to the message?

    c) How is this going to help the 99% of people that don't know how to filter their email anyway and are the ones that will likely end up with the gobs of spam in the first place?

    1. Re:My issues with this... by JesseL · · Score: 4, Interesting

      a) Would you rather see 100 variations of "hot sluts that dig farm animals want to meet you tonight"?

      b) So there are people who may see an explicit image before they scroll down, that goes now too. At least most people will benefit and none will suffer.

      c) Similar to point b. If 99% of people can't figure out how to use the tools they've got, so what? Why not do somthing to help the other 1% of us anyway? The people who don't want porn spam will still figure out pretty quickly not to open massages titled "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT". Right now you can't tell anything from the subject line - porn spam comes with subject lines ranging from (no subject) to "Your Mother Called".

      --
      "Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
  3. It's working? by tbase · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm actually seeing some mail labeled this way in our junk repository - but all of them violate CAN-SPAM in any number of ways, primarily the fact that they have no return address. I don't know why they bother, other than the fact that they're probably better able to reach their target audience with this method /setting up filter to 'Important Stuff' directory

    --

    666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
  4. I guess the big question is... by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Is offering to make my penis big enough to tear an Amazon in two sexually explicit?

    And what about if you're easily offended or get your crank turned by Norton of antivirus fame?

  5. Re:It seems by Coelacanth · · Score: 2, Interesting
    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!

    And what "rules" would those be? The stuff's already illegal, are you going to make a rule that grants spam-battered citizens immunity from prosecution if they successfully locate the spammer and beat him/her to a bloody pulp?

    Hey, wait...

  6. The law IS having an effect by daves · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Our incoming spam rate, normally a clean, rising, exponential curve, dropped 20% the day CAN-SPAM went into effect. It happened again the day last month that it was announced that 4 had been indicted under the Act.

    Of course, spam is still up 30% over the end of last year...

    --
    People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
    1. Re:The law IS having an effect by stevey · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bayesian filtering is a great solution at stopping you from seeing spam, but it does nothing to actually make it go away.

      My big problem is that I have a colocated box which gets 600-900 spam mails a day, they're filtered so I don't see them - but each incoming message still counts towards my monthly bandwidth allowance.

      So .. filtering alone is not a solution.

      (Sure I could filter at SMTP time, but that's a bit of a hassle to setup and wouldn't allow me to check that I've not missed something important).

  7. Re:Great, but what about spam from outside? NO?? by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Secondly, most of the spam I receive are not even from the US. Most of the stuff is from Asia or worse, eastern Europe. Do these regulations apply to them, too?

    It does not apply to them...until.....


    they send the spam to servers and recipients in the USA. Jurisdiction is not only based on where they are located, but also where they conduct business and where the harm is directed.


    The FTC has filed a lawsuit against the scumbag spammer known as Global Web promotions. I filed a lawsuit against them last year. Their scumbag lawyer has made many misrepresentations to the court. I will be posting it on my site shortly.

    --
    Fight Spammers!
  8. My 1/2 cent.... by jwcorder · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I am not an expert on email. I am would say I am not overly smart. I may be in the top 5% in intelligence if you measure the room I am currently in, but that isn't saying much. This is painfully obvious to me that SPAM is going to be a continued problem unless the government takes over email.

    Now I realize I am asking to be flamed on this one, but before you do, let me explain.

    Imagine what a crap hole the snail mail system would be if it was unregulated from the start. This is the same problem that is faced in todays society through email because no one realized from day one that it would become the medium it is today.

    Now many of you may ask, how would you regulate electronic mail? Simply put, the government could require that all email be routed through server farms that were strategically (sp) placed throughout the country.

    Once the mail routes through these servers, the servers could scan the headers and tag valid ones as authenic and SPAM as junk mail. You would have an option to be added to a "Do Not Spam List" and you could complain about any unsolicited email that you receive after being added to this list.

    Drawbacks to this system are as follows:

    1. Out money pays for it through stamp charge if you will to send email.

    2. Privacy concerns over the government having easy access to all email messages in the the country.

    My rebuttal to these two concerns are that I may actually get a 100 pieces of email that I want to read a month and I would gladly pay 5 to 10 bucks a month to be able to read them in peace. In addition, I would forfeit a small margin of possible privacy invasion to run these bastards out of town.

    Before you kill my karma, I will quote Dennis Miller: that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

    --
    http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
  9. Re:I can see the weasling now... by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've already got some variations..

    Sexual:Explicit
    Sexually-Explicit
    SEXUALLY EXPLICIT:

    etc.

    You don't have to leave ASCII to generate a few thousand variations.

  10. That's a great idea! by Parandor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And it would be so nice to enforce similar monikers to all publicity related writings:

    DUBIOUS OFFER -- SAVE 30% on a brand new TV set...
    POLITICAL PROMISE -- We will LOWER TAXES by 2% in the next 5 years...

    Hmm... Ho, just forget it.