Facebook has posted information pertaining to its SPAM filtering system that is applied to internal messaging. The full blog post can be found here. Most of the methods they use to identify SPAM messages are also found in e-mail filtering. Here are a few examples:
Unfortunately, not frequently enough do we see headlines highlighting CAN-SPAM lawsuits that end positively for the consumer. Part of the difficulty is that it is very difficult to identify the party responsible for the message. And once in court, it is then difficult to convince judges that tracer routes, WHOIS lookups, redirects, etc. are sufficient proof that the party is indeed the culpable entity.
However, I very much enjoy reading about suits related to false-advertising or deception that do end positively. In this case, the company used From lines that did not clearly identify the sender of the message. It also made misleading statements in the content of the message. As a result, the plaintiff won, and under the CA law, could be awarded $1,000 per message. (article)
On a similar note, many freebie sites got in trouble for deceptive content a few years back. By freebie, I mean sites that said you would receive a $500 gift card, etc. and then forced you to start signing up for a lot of products. The AGs of a number of states took action on those companies which is why, now, there is prominent text that the user will need to sign up for other offers.
This is not the first time the idea of a .XXX TLD has been broached in the digital community. In fact, it was back in 2004/2005 when ICM Registry applied to have the .XXX TLD approved and supported. However, at that time, ICM faced challenges such as lack of community and administration support.
However, this go around, .XXX looks like it will make it through the process and become available. Sources state that there are already 100k+ domain names that have been reserved. (Montreal Gazette) Clearly, some of the reservations will be brand protection, however, many will be porn companies proactively adopting the new TLD. Bear in mind that adoption of the .XXX TLD is NOT mandatory for companies.
A Connecticut resident may not be feeling so lucky today as the behemoth that is Microsoft has filed a $2 MM lawsuit against the person for manipulating Hotmail’s spam filters so that he or she could deliver email to the inbox of Hotmail subscribers.
When it comes to the user interface (UI), Hotmail seems to be a bit behind the game. Both AOL and Yahoo! have made significant strides to improve their sites through the increased use of AJAX (asynchronous activity). Ironically, I would also argue that one of my favorite email providers, GMail, has a similarly basic UI as Hotmail.