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

Great, but what about spam from outside?

[metlin]

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?

Re:Great, but what about spam from outside?

[stephenisu]

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.

It's working?

[tbase]

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

I guess the big question is...

[teamhasnoi]

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?

The law IS having an effect

[daves]

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...

Re:My issues with this...

[JesseL]

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".