Seven lawsuits have been filed by Microsoft against people believed to have spammed porn without the "brown paper wrapper" subject line and initial viewing area required by CAN-SPAM.
"Sexually explicit materials and publications for sale in stores are required by law to be covered from view with a brown paper wrapper, and it's important that consumers are protected online in the same way," said Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel Nancy Anderson, announcing the suits December 2. "Microsoft is committed to ensuring that Internet users are safe online and protected from receiving inappropriate content in email that is unsolicited, unwanted, and illegal."
The seven defendants are yet to be identified, but Microsoft is alleging they’ve sent hundreds of thousands of spam messages. They're accused of using worm-compromised computers worldwide to flush spam that included misleading subject lines and didn't include unsubscribe options and physical addresses, according to Microsoft's filings.
"Labeling requirements for spam are important, and the 'brown paper wrapper' rule is a particularly important provision," said Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy president Anne P. Mitchell, whose group had complained in April that months of CAN-SPAM enforcement showed no significant spam slowdown.
"Not only does requiring the words 'sexually explicit' in the subject line and message portion of the e-mail aid spam filters, it protects consumers from unwittingly having to view content that they may deem offensive and troubling," she continued in her statement. "Internet users should have this kind of control over the materials they receive in email, and online commercial marketers should be held to this standard of doing business."
CAN-SPAM – whose lack of opt-in mechanism, allowing spammers to make at least one reach to would-be recipients, prompted critics like Spamhaus to deride it as YOU-CAN-SPAM – took effect January 1. Among its provisions was a requirement that the FTC adopt rules mandating marks or notices on all material that includes Adult or other sexually oriented material, the better to keep Netizens who don't want such material from seeing it unwittingly.
Microsoft had also filed a suit in November against an as-yet unidentified spammer who sent spam that solicited Korean-language Adult sites among his offerings. To date, Microsoft is said to have supported over 115 legal actions around the world against spam as well as filing about 86 lawsuits of its own in the U.S.
