Posted on 05/21/2004 2:49:02 PM PDT by swilhelm73
WASHINGTON -- A new federal rule could mean that you no longer have to guess whether the spam you receive contains sexually explicit material.
Under a Federal Trade Commission rule that went into effect Wednesday, spam that includes sexually oriented material must include the words "sexually explicit" in the subject line.
The rule also includes a ban on graphic images appearing in the opening body of the message. The rules say the person who gets the mail must take some action to see the adult material -- either by scrolling down or clicking on a link.
An FTC attorney said the new rules should help computers that use anti-spam filters to weed out adult-oriented e-mail sent without permission.
But industry advocates critical of the rule view it as a "back door" attack on First Amendment rights.
Violators face possible imprisonment and criminal fines of up to $500,000.
Those who received spam that violates federal guidelines can forward it to uce@ftc.gov
Yeah, THAT might happen.
Since about 71% of spam comes from servers in china, how will this help?
Unplug China from the net....
An FTC attorney said the new rules should help computers that use anti-spam filters to weed out adult-oriented e-mail sent without permission.Spammers fear FTC rules as much as terrorists fear court summonses.
Uh . . . could we get in trouble for doing that?
It would be nice to blackhole them at the backbone, but they would just run to the WTO and we would lose.
Great, now spam has even more vulgar subject lines. Nothing like encouraging them.
Yeah, that would be like trying to force neon lights upon the porn shops of the 80s & 90s in NY's Times Square & elsewhere.
If adhered to, this will help eliminate some spam. You can easily create a Message Rule in Outlook or Outlook Express, for instance, to delete any message with "Sexually Explicit" in the subject line.
No good. The spammers would just start using variants of phrases like "s.e.x.u.a.l.l.y explicit" and so on.
These anti-spam laws are a waste. 90% of all spam comes from overseas. You think those spammers are worried? Got news for ya...
Beyond that, most of the spam I get now has nothing to do with porn. It's all about low interest loans, vicodin or some other garbage.
Do what I do: I have a rule that throws everything into the junk folder unless the sender is known to be legit.
I wonder if we can do something like this for Viagara sellers, credit card peddlers and the mortgage refinance people???
PING to the newly-created REPUBLICAN PARTY REPTILE ping list, named after our spiritual founder, P.J. O'Rourke. What is the Republican Party Reptile? It is a creature of the eighties. Its neoconservatism with its pants down around its ankles, the Rehnquist Supreme Court on drugs, a disco Hobbes living without shame or federally mandated safety regulations. The Republican Party Reptile supports a strong defense policy, but sees no reason to conduct it while sober. The RPR believes in minimum government interference in private affairsunless the government brings over extra girls and some ice. In short, the RPR is the new label that our political spectrum has been crying out forthe conservative with a sense of humor and a healthy dose of depravity.
To be added or subtracted, just ask. :o)
I take it a few steps further. To wit:
Pretty neat, eh? : )
After implementing all that, I've seen maybe two spams in the past three months.
My spam filter catches virtually all the spam. Unfortunately it occasionally catches a real message from someone I haven't yet whitelisted, so I don't like to delete from the server. But it's helpful to throw the spam into my Deleted folder where I can give it a quick lookover and then delete it automatically when I close the program.
At least the porn spam I can read. What the heck is up with all the span I get like this?
ÔÈÍÀÍÑÎÂÛÉ È ÞÐÈÄÈ×ÅÑÊÈÉ ÊÎÍÑÀËÒÈÍÃ
ÐÅÃÈÑÒÐÀÖÈß ÏÐÅÄÏÐÈßÒÈÉ 160
ÃÎÒÎÂÛÅ ÏÐÅÄÏÐÈßÒÈß 330
ÐÅÃÈÑÒÐÀÖÈß ÏÁÎÞË 70
ÐÅÃÈÑÒÐÀÖÈß ÀÊÖÈß Â ÔÊÖÁ 150
ÁÓÕÃÀËÒÅÐÑÊÈÉ Ó×ÅÒ È ÎÒ×ÅÒÍÎÑÒÜ 50
You know I may be insane, but I think I may have come up with a buisiness model to help defeat spam.
Create a closed email system where email can only be sent to address in the system by another email account in the same system. Charge a small (1-5 cents) fee for each email sent.
That way, we don't have to re-wire the entire internet just to fight spam.
They already are, to dodge existing spam filters. I'm getting tired of getting emails for "wh0les:ale v1agra" or having the p3n1s enlarger folks after me.
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