#175 August, 2005

White-washing spam and porn

The other evening a friend and fellow spam fighter called and said "Fred, you should tune in to this TV show -- they're tracking down a spammer." So I watched NBC's "Dateline" with close attention.

Editors from NBC had taken the challenge of finding the person(s) responsible for sending porno spam to a viewer's young daughter. All the elements of great reality entertainment was included: interviews, roving camera, even a supposed 'expert' opinion. It soon became astonishing that spending tens of thousands of dollars to track down the spammers would result in such a nonchalant attitude toward the crime. Where are "Cops" when we need you?

The spam trail took NBC correspondents to the Porn convention in Las Vegas where they actually met the creator and publisher of the porn site responsible for sending the spam. The lady (I shouldn't call her a lady,) admitted to owning the site, but was quick to add that their company didn't engage in sending spam. (Of course not!)

According to the porno owner, the company pays commissions to anyone who brings them viewers, however they discourage sending spam. In reality, she was testifying to paying someone to commit a felony.

Amazingly, but expected, the NBC reporter didn't understand what he was hearing. The reporter seemed too nonchalant as he was escorted out the doors of the convention hall. The public admission to crime for hire went unnoticed. What ever happened to real journalism? Geraldo Rivera would have had two Federal Marshals standing by to put the cuffs on. Where are you, Geraldo, when we need you?

So, we've met the employer of the shooter, now we get to meet the actual shooter -- the individual who was paid for sending the porno spam to the little girl. They caught up with him in Canada. The spammer and a business associate met with the reporter for lunch and established the fact that, yes, he had indeed sent the porno spam and that, yes, indeed he was in the business of spamming for hire. What came next was enough to make you sick. The criminal apologized for sending the porno spam to the little girl. "I've got children too" he whimpered. Wasn't that sweet -- apologizing for crossing onto U.S. homes to commit a felony? And how about that reporter -- a real hero for getting international criminal to apologize to his victim. It was beginning to look like a hug fest.

Then they called in the spam expert who shared his monumental words of wisdom like: "You can avoid spam by changing your email address..." among others. Here's a supposed spam expert on prime time TV, NOT sharing anything expert about the real issues surrounding spam and porno. (Yes, I saw him at the FTC Spam Forum, where he appeared to take a neutral position where he could pander to both the pros and the cons.) But then again, TV likes to utilize neutral experts... like those experts who vouched that the forged "Bush" papers were authentic. Why not just say: "It's really okay, those people have to make a living too... you just have to avoid them."; or "... if you don't ride the subway you'll avoid subway suicide bombers." Wouldn't it be interesting if Dateline chased down one of the Phisher spammers. More entertaining reality TV -- get the phisher to apologize to the person who's life he ruined by stealing their identity.

Revelation

One might expect a national network to understand the difference between right and wrong -- that distributing pornographic material to minors is a violation of multiple Title 18 Federal codes; and that hiring someone to do so is a felony.

At the end of the show however, I understood why the relaxed attitude toward spam. The big closing plug for MSNBC's web site invited viewers to come to the web site and get tips on avoiding spam. Of course! We should have known there would be an ad in there somewhere. Soften everyone up on spam and porno while MSN is working toward instituting their email authentication plans.

Now I've heard everything

If that story wasn't enough to get you steamed, how about porno purveyors taking search engines to court for copyright infringement of their photos? Although I predicted this would happen in a previous column, I had no idea it was already happening.

The "adult" online magazine, Perfect 10, has filed lawsuites against both Amazon and Google -- asking the court to prevent Amazon's A9 search unit as well as Google from finding and displaying the magazine's images. Duh. Hello? Does this elevator go to the top floor?

Yes, those people surely own the copyright to their images. I would be the last one to stand in the way of individual rights and freedom of speech. However this issue has nothing to do with ownership. It's about Constitutional freedoms. The porn purveyors are completely within their Constitutional rights NOT to post their adult fare if they don't want Google googling them or people saving the images they find. Any intelligent being knows that. And, likewise, the search engines are completely within their rights to deliver images when people ask "Where are the dirty pictures?" Believing the search engines like Amazon and Google shouldn't "find" their images and then let people see them without paying for them is simply ludicrous.

Folks, in reality, this whole sordid mess is NOT about copyright. It's about money. Porno rakes in huge amounts of money from online advertising. Follow this one closely, the porn purveyors could stand to make millions and millions off Amazon and Google. I'm hoping all search engines everywhere start blocking Perfect 10 along with the porno horse they rode in on.

This is one more case where the the Supreme Court's "Secondary Liability" ruling (in the recent Grokster case) says "He's guilty even if he didn't pull the trigger." These pornographic web sites are in violation of the Federal code even if they didn't send the spam but paid someone else to. The mainstay of the online porn industry depends on spam and search engines bringing viewers to their sites. It's ludicrous to think the search engines should 'find' their sites to bring visitors -- but not find their images.

Sitting online is not illegal. People have the right to post anything they desire to their web sites. By virtue of publishing materials to the web, the publisher is inviting any consumer to access and view them. But pushing such materials into private homes -- or into the hands of minors -- is definitely a crime. Why aren't we treating it as such?

It's time wake up.

Thanks for reading...

Fred Showker

 

References:
MSNBC Dateline story
      comments to dateline at nbc.com
Perfect-10 Tests Copyright Law
Perfect-10 Tests Copyright Law
Web Pro: Perfect10 Goes After Google, Amazon

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