FTC Tries to Can Sex Spam

F_SMASH writes "The United States' Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged a group of companies and individuals with failing to include required warnings on 'sex' related spam e-mail."

Comments

Easy filtering from here!

[MikTheUser]

'Cause now we can just set our spam filters to look out for something like "WARNING: This message's content might not be suited for..." right in the subject!

Images in the subject line?

[bobbyjack]

the FTC claims many of the e-mails revealed sexually explicit words or images in the subject line

(my emphasis)

Seriously, are their email clients that display images in the subject line?!

Re:Offshore?

[pjrc]

How is the US FTC going to charge them?

Well, from the MSNBC article:

But Harrington said the CAN-SPAM Act, which took force last January, makes all firms that engage in affiliate marketing liable for the actions of their sub-contractors.

"There's a message here for anybody running an affiliate program; you need to monitor what the third parties are doing," she said. "If you are using a business model that recruits others, you are strictly liable for the practices of those third parties. It's not just the people who push the button. It's the business that provides the financial incentive. The law is clear and strict."

And quoting from the CNN Money article:

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants that prohibits them from sending similar e-mails and freezes their assets, pending a preliminary hearing.

Now if all the companies and people involved are outside the US, or they keep all their money stuffed in their mattresses and pay cash for everything, maybe they can just run away.

But if they've done any banking within the US, they probably stand to lose all their money if they don't show up in court. (now if only groklaw would cover these cases....)