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.
Like other e-mail marketers, they will also have to include their postal address and an easy way for recipients to opt out of future mailings.
The FTC proposed in January that pornographic messages be labeled "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT-CONTENT:" but shortened the label in its final order to take up less space in the subject line.
Marketers will not be allowed to use explicit phrases in the subject line, the FTC said.
Several states have already passed laws requiring pornographic spam to bear an "ADV:ADULT" label or some variant, but they will be overridden by the federal standard.
Copyright 2004, Reuters News Service
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