FTC Defines Spam

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The FTC has just issued its final report on how it will define Spam with regards to the federal CAN-SPAM act. According to the FTC, bulk e-mail is commercial if it includes advertising and promotion or if the subject line or beginning of the message would be reasonably considered to be advertising or promotion. This is very similar to the proposed rules that were announced back in August. The modified rules also deal with the issues of transactional messages (an e-mail regarding an order that also includes advertising) and relationship-based e-mail (messages about product updates, etc)."

Comments

Pretty vague definition

[nizo]

And it hardly includes everything. What about those freaky religious spams from strange cults trying to save my soul? And what about spam in some weird language that my mail reader can't even render properly, with a free bonus virus attachment? What about spam that has no subject or message, just a url to a website (or even a picture)? Personally I think we should just broaden the definition of spam to be "any weird crap that I didn't ask for in my inbox" and be done with it.

Re:Pretty vague definition

[techno-vampire]

And it hardly includes everything.

"It isn't perfect, therefore it's no good." That's basically what you're saying. This is a first effort at banning spam, so it isn't going to catch everything. Let's see how it works, and expect it to be extended as time goes on.

Re:Pretty vague definition

[St. Arbirix]

The technology should be stopping spam, not the FTC. As much as Slashdot complains about government oversight...

Definition not broad enough?

[KillerDeathRobot]

It seems like the definition could be more inclusive. I get plenty of emails that have totally meaningless text and then sometimes (but not always!) a link at the bottom to something I could buy. I'm guessing that some of these are an attempt to see if there's anyone at my inbox reading mail, but in any case I'd definitely call these spam.

Spam definition?

[Dorsai65]

1) I didn't ask for it.
2) It isn't in my (native) language.
3) I have no pre-existing relationship with the company being mentioned.
4) The subject line must parse as normal language - |\|0 l33t-5p34| 5) May not include any attachments.
6) May not consist of only a graphic or link to a website.

For additional protection, hold the companies being advertised liable for the actions of the company doing the "promotion".

Unfortunate Necessary Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

The kind of folks that read /. want complete freedom on the internet. They also want no more spam.

The sad truth is that you can't have both. You either have an international body that regulates the internet (which personaly I don't want, and I assume most /.ers agree), or you have spam.

Spammers and anoyed people will continue to fight for a long long time.

FTC Issues Hot Air

[IO ERROR]

Your post advocates a

( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which vary from state to state.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires cooperation from too many of your friends and is counterintuitive
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
( ) Other:

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
( ) Other:

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
(x) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
(x) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
( ) Other:

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!