US FTC says pornographic "spam" must be labeled

[PfcHammer]

http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2004/04/13/rtr1330562.html

US FTC says pornographic "spam" must be labeled
Reuters, 04.13.04, 12:28 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pornographic "spam" e-mail will have to contain a warning on the subject line so Internet users can easily filter it out, the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday.

Starting May 19, sexually explicit e-mail will have to bear a label reading "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:" and the messages themselves will not be allowed to contain graphic material, the FTC said.

Outrage over unsolicited pornography and other forms of junk e-mail spurred Congress to pass the first nationwide anti-spam law last year, which required the FTC to develop labels for smut.

An FTC study released last spring found that 17 percent of pornographic offers contained images of nudity that appeared whether a recipient wanted to see them or not.

The new rule is intended to change that. Pornographers will not be allowed to include sexually explicit pictures in the body of the message, though they will be allowed to include hyperlinks or other methods to access their material.

<snip>

[htuttle]

1. Or else what?

It sounds like the FTC STILL doesn't seem to understand the nature of the internet.

To get any control over spam, they will have to start by de-commercializing the administration of domain names. Worldwide. If not, then they may as well not bother with 'regulations' like this one proposed above.

[Selwynn]

17. Exactly what I was going to post..

[mouse7]

2. Great. Try enforcing that regulation in Romania.

Or any number of republics of the former Soviet Union.

Regulation of the net will never happen, because there will always be a few countries that will not enforce the rules.

[Roaming]

3. But doesn't most email have to pass through some sort of

internet provider? I would think those providers then could intercept the messages legally before they reached their destinations. Not sure though; my knowledge of how all this works is limited.

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. Then their ISPs will be blocked

And ALL traffic -- web, e-mail, IM, etc. -- will be eliminated from foreign spam supporters.

Only fair after all.

[htuttle]

6. That won't help

Which legal/commercial entity regulates a particular domain has little to do with a server's physical location anymore. That's what I was alluding to in my reply #1.

A good example is the wild and woolly world of '.ru' domains (theoretically 'Russian'). A huge number of them are actually running on servers in the US. Others in '.ru' domains could be anywhere else on the planet, and can move in an eyeblink (or close to that -- just a few hours for new DNS information to propagate).

Until the regulation of the internet itself, which is really just the regulation of domains, STOPS being seen as a profit making activity, you're not going to be able to regulate spam.

Already, there are (mostly private) efforts to try and trace and ultimately block some of the most egregious spammers out there. It's nearly impossible as things are currently set up.

[Muddleoftheroad]

9. Spam must originate

It originates from a server. The second spam is detected, at a hub, that server should be blocked.

Then of course, anyone caught marketing products via spam should be shut down down and jailed.

[Mithras61]

11. Actually, most spam doesn't originate from a server...

or at least, not from a traditional server. The huge majority of spam these days is from relays which are often set up on unsuspecting users' systems by trojans & viruses, which seem to be pandemic at this time.

And FWIW, the current "blacklist" system works much as you describe, and costs companies some serious $$$ to implement and update (usually done AT LEAST weekly), especially when they end up on the lists because some damnfoolidiot in their network opened an attachment without scanning it for viruses, or installed some cute free screensaver that slipped in a service/daemon in the background and turned a non-server into an email relay...

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. Part of that problem is easily corrected

And that's by implementing firewall software on all computers that doesn't suck.

[Mithras61]

21. Actually, a huge part of the problem can't be fixed so easily...

most newer viruses and spam trojans scan for and disable several popular firewalls and anti-virus software packages. The REAL solution lies in the failings of the supporting protocol (Simple Mail Tranfer Protocol) to provide any source authentication, and most email servers don't have host authentication capabilities (that is, if you claim to be sending from [e-mail], my email server looks at the source of the email, and if it isn't a server in domain.com, the mail gets thrown out or bounced).

[drfemoe]

15. self deleted

n/m

[htuttle]

16. Somebody that got infected with a virus had you in their address book

Spam viruses/trojans will often scan through the host computers Windows address book, and use those addresses as the origins of its spam. If any of the spams bounce, the NDN gets sent to you (if your address was used as the originator).

It has no connection to you really. They just used your name.

[drfemoe]

19. okay thanks

I decided to erase because I don't want to leave any more 'tracks' .. I get so angry at some of my family who forward email CRAP with my addy tagged along to the rest!!! Some of my 'friends' don't even have my most active email address because they insist on sending 'personalized spam'. End users could do a lot to prevent the spread also. They just don't know.

[Mithras61]

20. What's your email client software?

If it's Outlook/Outlook express, change the security zone to "Restricted Sites"... that should help prevent anyone using it to relay. Beyond that, it sounds like your email address has been scavenged by a harvester program and is being substituted into the "From" field. This is a new technique of spammers to avoid the blowback that shuts down some of their spamming.

C|Net (http://www.cnet.com) has recently had a series of articles on a related subject (spread of viruses), with the latest one commenting on this evolving technique. Essentially, the old "you sent me a virus" email is no longer a valid way to help stop the spread of viruses because the source of the virus may be spoofed. I've seen the same thing happening with spam, where the text says one thing, but if anyone bothered to break down the message, the source would be something else.

[drfemoe]

26. Outlook 2000

Checked, and it is set to "restricted". Thanks for the tips.

[yardwork]

5. Duh. Most of the spam I get is easily recognizable as such.

Another example of hard-hitting policies brought to you by the Shrub administration.

[BiggJawn]

7. Oh, just like the "ADV" flag, right?

I have ONE correspondent who uses that on his mailings. It's a firm I do business with.
The rest of them use the most fantatsic spellings for "Viagra", "Vicodin", "Add Three Inches", etc. you could ever imagine in attempts to bypass the spam filters....

Like a subject line such as "Chyx hoo dr!nk C.um" Fool anybody?

[maxwall]

8. Who gets to define "pornography"?

Given that Asscroft is on his Ed Meese-esque Anti-Porn Crusade, who gets to define what constitutes porn? What type of penalty will there be?
Photos of your kids in the bath are viewed as child pornography, and if you send it to granny, I guess this is one more additional statute they'll use to imprison you/fine you/etc...
Just watch: the statutory definition of porn will be - anything that makes the Chimp look foolish... :eyes:

[daleo]

10. But that would be everything in the known universe

"anything that makes the Chimp look foolish..."

[MsSnood]

12. Well it's about time.

I've received as many as 50 a day of these pesky and annoying spam mails.

[Selwynn]

18. And you still will. Any they won't be "labeled"

Because this "law" is un-enforcable.

The "internet" is not a US-thing. It is a world thing. :)

[MsSnood]

22. My ISP just came out with a spam blocker, so I hope that will

provide some relief. Recently the ones I've been getting have obvious filth in the titles, making it obvious they are porn.

[Mithras61]

23. You might want to get some anti-spam software...

Your ISPs software will almost certainly be configured to err on the generous side (that is, presume it ISN'T spam). You can get several good anti-spam packages that will handle most of it by putting it into another folder, and you can easily delete the obvious stuff without it choking up your Inbox.

The one I currently use has a list of addresses (it scanned my email folders to get them) that I communicate with, and if the source isn't on that list, it can delete, reject or quarantine the message.

[MsSnood]

24. I've considered it. It just annoys me that I have to spend more money

to prevent mail that I never asked for to begin with. I've never visited a porn site. I've never ordered Viagra or asked for information to grow my you-know-what by 3 inches.

It just gripes me that there is always another cost to me for caller ID, spam blockers, etc., to prevent telemarketers and now porn mail.

Yeah, I'll get it eventually. Sorry for the rant.

[Mithras61]

25. No problem. I'd suggest checking out...

http://downloads.cnet.com as they have some freeware & trial-ware that you can check out to see if it meets your needs.

[Name removed]

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