Porn Valley- The Federal Trade Commission has won an extension to an injunction issued January 5th https://adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=7748 against six companies that operate pornographic Web sites, barring them from using e-mail to advertise their sites while lawsuits against them are pending.

Many in the Internet industry have claimed that the federal CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 has had little impact on the onslaught of ads for impotence drugs, make-money-fast schemes, and less savory content and services.

But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun using the legislation to go after some of the most notorious spammers — advertisers for pornography sites.

The FTC has won an extension to a January 5th injunction against six companies that will prevent them from advertising pornographic content through e-mails until the lawsuit comes to completion. Among the violations committed by the companies, claims the FTC, is the fact that their e-mails do not have the required “Sexually Explicit” tag included in the subject line.

The six companies involved are Global Net Solutions, Open Space Enterprises, Southlake Group, WTFRC (doing business as Reflected Networks), Global Net Ventures and Wedlake.

At issue is how to allow the free communication of information through the Internet without exposing children — or adults who object, for that matter — to inappropriate material. The fact that the predominant user base of the Internet skews toward younger age groups is well-known, Yankee Group’s Patrick Mahoney told NewsFactor. Internet service providers like AOL have worked very hard to establish parental controls through which adults can filter what children can access on Internet sites.

But what good are those filters when pornographic text and images are being delivered directly to e-mail inboxes? And children are not the only concern. Most Internet users know well the experience of skimming quietly through their mail in the morning only to be confronted with content whose tastelessness seems to know no limit.

Advocates of allowing pornography to proliferate freely on the Internet say that those who do not wish to view it simply should not visit the sites. But the recent explosion of e-mails advertising such sites gives users little choice.

The FTC injunction differentiates between the two methods of content delivery. The six companies involved can continue to operate their Web sites while the suit is in process. However, they are prohibited from sending any e-mails that advertise those sites while the matter is in process.