Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce

[Ragnar Lonn <]

On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Kurt Jaeger wrote:

> It boils down to the filter problem -- can we filter on content ?
> 
> PICS tried it, all those children protection schemes tried it.
> Why should it work ?
> 

It'll never work 100% but this is a little different. Here, you're
trying to find a few messages that *may* be interesting to you while
in e.g. PICS you're trying to find the few that are *not* interesting
to you. Also - Here, if a message doesn't reach you because you, or the
originator used the wrong keywords, it is no disaster. It isn't something
you were waiting for anyhow.

> > Maybe limiting the number of keywords would help that, of course. If
> > all software only cared about the first 5 keyword strings, there would
> > be little reason for 'unserious' spammers to lie about the content of
> > their messages as they would othen nly get viewed by people less likely to
> > be interested in their advertising.
> 
> What if they put in "money", but contained "sex" ? Or any other
> combination of distrustful advertisment ? As one lawyer in a related
> discussion said (in german and not so plain): "We're sure you're
> interested in our spam -- we from the ad agencies know how to arouse
> interest, e.g. by adding price drawing information etc.".

Yeah that's the risk you're running and which it may be wise not
to bother about all the keywords listed. But I don't think that using
"sex" as a keyword really helps more than using the appropriate one.
I mean, maybe they get more people looking at their product but they
will surely get percentage-wise less interested people so the question
is whether it will actually help their sales. I don't know but I doubt
it.

  /Ragnar