Policy-Mandated Labels Such as "Adv:" in Email Subject Headers Considered Ineffective At Best
RFC 4096
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(May 2005; No errata)
Was draft-malamud-subject-line (individual in app area)
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Author | Carl Malamud | ||
Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Stream | WG state | (None) | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 4096 (Informational) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | Scott Hollenbeck | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Network Working Group C. Malamud Request for Comments: 4096 Memory Palace Press Category: Informational May 2005 Policy-Mandated Labels Such as "Adv:" in Email Subject Headers Considered Ineffective At Best Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005). Abstract This memo discusses policies that require certain labels to be inserted in the "Subject:" header of a mail message. Such policies are difficult to specify accurately while remaining compliant with key RFCs and are likely to be ineffective at best. This memo discusses an alternate, standards-compliant approach that is significantly simpler to specify and is somewhat less likely to be ineffective. Table of Contents 1. Labeling Requirements ...........................................2 1.1. Terminology ................................................3 2. Subject Line Encoding ...........................................3 3. Implementing a Labeling Requirement .............................5 4. Subjects are For Humans, Not Labels .............................6 5. Solicitation Class Keywords .....................................8 6. Security Considerations ........................................10 7. Recommendations ................................................10 8. Acknowledgements ...............................................10 9. References .....................................................11 9.1. Normative References ......................................11 9.2. Informative References ....................................11 Malamud Informational [Page 1] RFC 4096 Policy Labeling Ineffective May 2005 1. Labeling Requirements The U.S. Congress and President have enacted the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act of 2003) [US], which requires in Section 11(2) that the Federal Trade Commission: "[transmit to the Congress] a report, within 18 months after the date of enactment of this Act, that sets forth a plan for requiring commercial electronic mail to be identifiable from its subject line, by means of compliance with Internet Engineering Task Force Standards, the use of the characters "ADV" in the subject line, or other comparable identifier, or an explanation of any concerns the Commission has that cause the Commission to recommend against this plan." The Korean Government has enacted the Act on Promotion of Information and Communication and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection of 2001 [Korea]. As explained by the Korea Information Security Agency, the government body with enforcement authority under the act, Korean law makes it mandatory as of June, 2003 to: "include the '@' (at) symbol in the title portion (right-side) of any commercial e-mail address, in addition to the words '(Advertisement)' or '(Adult Advertisement)' as applicable. The inclusion of the '@' symbol, as proposed by the Korean government, is intended to indicate an e-mail advertisement. Because e-mails easily cross international borders, the '@' symbol may be used as a symbol for filtering advertisement mails." [KISA] The State of Colorado has enacted the Colorado Junk Email Law, which states: "It shall be a violation of this article for any person that sends an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message to fail to use the exact characters "ADV:" (the capital letters "A", "D", and "V", in that order, followed immediately by a colon) as the first four characters in the subject line of an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message." [Colorado] The Rules of Professional Conduct of the Florida Bar require, in Rule 4-7.6(c)(3) states: "A lawyer shall not send, or knowingly permit to be sent, on the lawyer's behalf or on behalf of the lawyer's firm or partner, an associate, or any other lawyer affiliated with the lawyer or the lawyer's firm, an unsolicited electronic mail communication Malamud Informational [Page 2] RFC 4096 Policy Labeling Ineffective May 2005 directly or indirectly to a prospective client for the purpose of obtaining professional employment unless ... the subject line of the communication states 'legal advertisement.'" [Florida] A subject line that complies with the above requirements might readShow full document text