Jon Leibowitz: New FTC chair

Jon Leibowitz is slated to be appointed the new chair of the FTC as reported by Bloomberg and CNet. This may mean tougher regulations online. In the past Mr. Leibowitz has advocated that online advertisers move to opt-in for website cookies. This may signal his intention to put more control in the hands of the consumer. According to Bloomberg, Mr. Leibowitz has also “advocated more aggressive enforcement by the FTC.” We may see more CAN SPAM prosecutions as a result.

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TWSD: breaking the law

I tell my clients that they should comply with CAN SPAM (physical postal address and unsubscribe option) even if the mail they are sending is technically exempt. The bar for legality is so low, there is no reason not to.
Sure, there is a lot of spam out there that does not comply with CAN SPAM. Everything you see from botnets and proxies is in violation, although many of those mails do actually meet the postal address and unsubscribe requirements.
One of my spams recently caught my eye today with their disclaimer on the bottom: “This email message is CAN SPAM ACT of 2003 Compliant.” The really funny bit is that it does not actually comply with the law. Even better, the address it was sent to is not published anywhere, so the company could also be nailed for a dictionary attack and face enhanced penalties.
It reminds me of the old spams that claimed they complied with S.1618.

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McCain Campaign Spamming

As I mentioned in my post on spam from the Obama campaign, there have been reports of spam coming from the McCain campaign. However, the McCain campaign does not seem to be sending the volume of mail that the Obama campaign is, and so they are not as visible.
A recent post over at Denialism Blog shows that the McCain campaign has some of the same problems as the Obama campaign. Chris talks about the unsubscribe options he is presented when trying to stop the spam he is receiving. He suggests the campaign adds another option:

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Question from the comments

On yesterday’s post there is a question in the comments that I think needs a bit more discussion.

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