Subject: [Asrg] FTC tells us what is SPAM

From: William Leibzon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:55:43 -0800 (PST)

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/12/canspamfrn.htm
  For Release: December 16, 2004

FTC Issues Final Rule Defining What Constitutes a "Commercial Electronic 
Mail Message"

  Notice Includes Criteria For Determining the "Primary Purpose" of an
  E-Mail Message

The Federal Trade Commission today issued final regulations to facilitate 
the determination of whether an e-mail message has a commercial primary 
purpose and is subject to the provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act. The CAN-SPAM 
Act, which took effect January 1, 2004, requires the Commission to issue 
regulations "defining the relevant criteria to facilitate the determination
of the primary purpose of an electronic mail message." The FTC published 
a Federal Register notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on August 13, 
2004, seeking public comment on its proposed primary purpose criteria. 
The NPRM followed an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, issued on 
March 11, 2004, on this and other related issues raised by the CAN-SPAM Act

As detailed in the Federal Register notice, which will be published 
shortly and can be found on the Commission's Web site as a link to this 
press release, the final Rule is substantially similar to the proposal 
contained in the NPRM, but adds a criterion for determining the primary 
purpose of an e-mail message containing only "transactional or 
relationship" content, among other minor changes. The CAN-SPAM Act 
regulates both commercial messages and transactional or relationship 
messages. The notice makes clear that the Commission does not intend to 
regulate non-commercial speech through the Rule. The notice also addresses 
public comments received about the constitutionality of the CAN-SPAM Act, 
as well as of the FTC's "primary purpose" criteria.

The final Rule sets forth criteria for determining the primary purpose of 
various kinds of e-mail messages. These include:

* For e-mail messages that contain only the commercial advertisement or
   promotion of a commercial product or service ("commercial content"),
   the primary purpose of the message will be deemed to be commercial;

* For e-mail messages that contain both commercial content and
   "transactional or relationship" content as set forth in the Act's
   definition of "transactional or relationship message" and in the final
   Rule, the primary purpose of the message will be deemed to be commercial
   if either: 1) a recipient reasonably interpreting the subject line of
   the e-mail would likely conclude that the message contains commercial
   content; or 2) the e-mail's "transactional or relationship" content
   does not appear in whole or substantial part at the beginning of the
   body of the message;

* For e-mail messages that contain both commercial content and content
   that is neither "commercial" nor "transactional or relationship," the
   primary purpose of the message will be deemed to be commercial if
   either: 1) a recipient reasonably interpreting the subject line of the
   message would likely conclude that the message contains commercial
   content; or 2) a recipient reasonably interpreting the body of the
   message would likely conclude that the primary purpose of the message
   is commercial. Factors relevant to this interpretation include the
   placement of commercial content in whole or in substantial part at the
   beginning of the body of the message; the proportion of the message
   dedicated to commercial content; and how color, graphics, type size,
   and style are used to highlight commercial content; and

* For e-mail messages that contain only "transactional or relationship"
   content, the message will be deemed to have a "transactional or
   relationship" primary purpose.

Finally, the final Rule incorporates the "Sexually Explicit Labeling Rule" 
as promulgated in April 2004. The Commission vote approving publication of 
the Federal Register notice was 4-0-1, with Commissioner Jon Leibowitz not 
participating.

Copies of the Federal Register notice are available from the FTC's Web 
site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC's Consumer Response 
Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580. 
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and 
unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to 
help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English 
or Spanish (bilingual counselors are available to take complaints), or to 
get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 
1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form at 
http://www.ftc.gov. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity 
theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a 
secure, online database available to hundreds of civil and criminal law 
enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Mitchell J. Katz
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2161

STAFF CONTACTS:

Catherine Harrington-McBride or Michael Goodman,
Bureau of Consumer Protection
202-326-2452 or 202-326-3071

(FTC File No. R411008)

(http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/12/canspamfrn.htm)

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From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Dec 2004 20:51:25 -0000

>  Notice Includes Criteria For Determining the "Primary Purpose" of an

This has vanishingly little to do with defining what spam is.  They're
defining what messages are subject to the CAN SPAM act, which
regulates all commercial e-mail, solicited and unsolicited.

I don't think much of the rules that CAN SPAM defines, but don't shoot
the messenger.  The Congress directed the FTC to regulate some kinds
of email, and the FTC is clarifying what mail that is.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
http://www.taugh.com

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From: William Leibzon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:13:29 -0800 (PST)

> of email, and the FTC is clarifying what mail that is.

I agree. I've very little faith in the "You can spam all you want" act by 
congress. It seems to have allowed large spammers to tell ISPs that they 
are not doing anything illegal because they are CAN-SPAM compliant (which 
might or might not be true, but verifying takes long time) and if ISPs do 
threated a disconnect then they begin to use lawyers to keep them up longer.

Nevertheless that Congress clarified what consititutes a COMMERCIAL EMAIL
is very important because that directly related to UCE type of spam and
commercial part is very often what makes a difference if deciding how to
react to bulk sender on your net.

---
William Leibzon
   mailto: [email-masked]
Anti-Spam and Email Security Research Worksite:
   http://www.elan.net/~william/emailsecurity/
Whois & DNS Network Investigation Tools:
   http://www.completewhois.com