Spam Mail with False Title to be Punished

The person who sends e-mails without an indication of advertisement or containing false exaggerated ads will be punished of suspension of business license or criminal punishment from May.

Moreover, the senders of the mails with a title deluding recipients even without false exaggerated contents will be punished by related laws from July.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on the 23rd `Spam mail regulation measurement` as above to prevent rashly sent advertising mails.

According to the measurement, FTC will intensively control △the advertising mails without representative`s name and address, △commercial mails without `ads` mark on the title, △mails typed as `광*고` or `광~고` in order to make anti-Spam mail software not recognize them as advertising mails, and △mails deluding recipients by adding `answer` or `Re:question`.

Especially from May, based on the listed consumer`s report and the result of the investigation by virtue of the office, FTC will punish Spam mail senders with suspension of business license and a fine applying `door-to-door sales law` and `fair advertisement expression law`, and accuse them for 3 year imprisonment.

In addition, FTC decided to punish for the mails with a title deluding consumers even without false exaggerated contents from July, when new electronic commerce protection law is put into operation.

Lee Sung-Goo chief of electronic commerce protection division in FTC said, “recipients` mental stress and disturbance of business, and expenses of Internet service businesspersons are increasing so much that we prepared this strong measurement. We are promoting the regulation on the large-size advertising mails. ”

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com