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US laws dictate that hardcore messages must
include an explicit label.
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Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global
network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have welcomed
news that five pornography companies have been fined a total of
$1.6 million for sending spam which did not include a warning
indicating they included sexually explicit content.
Under US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules spammers must
include the warning 'SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: ' in the subject lines of
their pornographic emails or face fines. Spammers who do not
clearly label their sexually orientated messages are in violation
of federal law.
Florida-based BangBros.com Inc. and APC Entertainment Inc. have
agreed to pay $650,000 and $220,000 in fines respectively, MD Media
of Michigan have been fined $238,743. Two other companies, Pure
Marketing Solutions and Internet Matrix Technology, will will pay
$50,000 to settle the charges against them.
According to the FTC, the companies have also agreed to allow
their operations to be monitored to ensure they comply with the law
in future. It has been reported that the companies investigated did
not actually send out the messages, but are still liable because
they hired third parties to do so on their behalf.
"This is another victory for the authorities against those who
bombard email accounts with unwanted and sometimes unsavoury
content," said Graham
Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. "The FTC
guidelines on marking sexually explicit spam are unpopular amongst
the spammers, because it makes it easier to identify unsolicited
hardcore messages and prevent them from reaching users. Anything
which makes life less profitable for spammers has to be good news
for all of us."
The FTC's rules follow the controversial CAN-SPAM Act and are
designed to protect email recipients from being unwittingly exposed
to unwanted sexual images in spam messages. The FTC has also
declared that spam messages should not contain sexual images, but
can include links to sites which do contain adult content.
The FTC ruling about stamping sexually explicit spam came into
effect from 19 May 2004. More details can be found on the FTC's website.
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.