Pornographic Spam Must Be Labeled, FTC Says

[CShine]

Pornographic "spam" e-mail will have to be clearly labeled by mid-June to allow Internet users to easily filter it out, the Federal Trade Commission announced today.

Unsolicited pornography will have to bear a label reading "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT-CONTENT:" in the subject line and the messages themselves will not be allowed to contain graphic material, the FTC said.

Outrage over unsolicited pornography and other forms of unsolicited 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.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2375615

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Those are the worst kind of offensive, unethical spammers

I don't mind the porn, but I hate it in email, especially the way they spam everyone and everything - crikey, kids are getting flooded with this crap.

Sad thing is, I don't think they're really going to be able to afford it, becuase the ones who do the spamming tend to have fly-by-night sites.

[arcane1]

2. have you, or anyone you know...

EVER bought something via spam? Ever send your credit card info to the sender of a spam email?

:shrug:

I'm amazed that there is any money in this at all... but I guess that applies to all advertizing, really...

[rumguy]

3. Yeah, no kidding, how would anyone possibly be swayed by spam

I've had spammers posing as lenders, etc...like I'd take a loan out from some spammer...

[ixion]

4. the FTC misses the point again

the point is not that spam should be labeled. The point is that it shouldn't be tolerated.

So now, instead of porn spam with a fake subject, you'll have a labled porn spam with fake subject.

Will these people never learn?

[democracyindanger]

6. But...

...if all porn spam subject lines must include a specific phrase, then it'll be easy to filter all of them out. A good thing, IMO.

Now if they can do something about all the 'V.IA.G.R.A' spam...

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. This is great

I am getting tired of emails telling me they can enlarge my penis. I don't have one so I am really not interested in enlarging it.