Perilocity

Loopholes Closed by FTC in CAN-SPAM Act Rules

The U.S. FTC has updated its regulations regarding the CAN-SPAM Act (PDF) to require:

(1) an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender;

(2) the definition of “sender” was modified to make it easier to determine which of multiple parties advertising in a single e-mail message is responsible for complying with the Act’s opt-out requirements;

(3) a “sender” of commercial e-mail can include an accurately-registered post office box or private mailbox established under United States Postal Service regulations to satisfy the Act’s requirement that a commercial e-mail display a “valid physical postal address”; and

(4) a definition of the term “person” was added to clarify that CAN-SPAM’s obligations are not limited to natural persons.

— FTC Approves New Rule Provision Under The CAN-SPAM Act, Press Release, FTC, May 12, 2008

These changes appear to tighten up what is required of marketers; they have to say who they are and they can't weasel out by claiming a corporation is not a person.

However, it's not clear to me why it's opt-out that's required; why not opt-in? I never trust a spammer to process an opt-out; I assume they're just collecting more addresses. Plus the spammer still has ten days to process opt-out requests.

-jsq

Bot Buyin

Bruce, seeing that the Storm Worm has sprouted stock tout popups on its own bots:

(((I'm guessing the next step is to contact Storm bot victims directly and ask them to join the Storm Network voluntarily. AFter all, if you obeyed that Storm spam pop-up, you cashed in; and this would be a valuable opportunity to become a foot-soldier in the biggest online organized=crime outfit ever.)))

— Storm Worm spams its own bots, By Bruce Sterling, Beyond the Beyond, November 15, 2007 | 11:34:00 AM

Having proved that it can infect much of the Internet and the alleged security professionals can do nothing about it, Storm now bids to get its victims to join it?

-jsq

Microshills

I've often wondered if this was happening:

A ROW IS BREWING between a bunch of bloggers who took cash from Microsoft marketing outfit and stodgy old media types who take their bribes in less obvious ways.

The row started on Friday when the ValleyWag revealed how some "star boggers" had taken some cash from Federated Media to repeat some Microsoft sloganeering in copy on their websites.

Michael Arrington tells all how his Techcrunch site became "people-ready". Gigaom's Om Malik talks about when a business becomes "people ready". Others named and shamed include Paul Kedrosky and Matt Marshall of Venture Beat, as well as Fred Wilson, the blogger-investor. Ads with the Volish motto appear on the blogger's site.

— Boggers embroiled in Volish bribery kerfuffle, Old media lecture the new, By Nick Farrell, The Inquirer, Monday 25 June 2007, 14:02

Well, wonder no more.

-jsq