madult content : follow the .$$$

What domain extension could follow .xxx but .mobi ? At the crossroad, Informa proposes new estimates for the global market for adult content on mobile devices : US$2.3 billion and 114M regular users by 2010. Informa plays it safe thanks to the following warning : "However, this figure is only expected to be realized if mobile carriers and content providers work with regulators to determine solid controls and age verification procedures".
If we say these regular users will represent 40% of all users and 90% of the pie, we're talking a $8 ARPU for all users and a $18 mark for hardcore madults. As far as age verification is concerned, some operators could follow Daum : parents open accounts for their kids and other people cannot send anything to their mailbox without answering a few questions. A great firewall against spammers but Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication went even further.
Spammers' e-mail and fixed line phone accounts will be stopped and convicted spammers and felons will be prevented from opening new ones. That is provided e-mail services adopt new rules and ask for the subscribers' real names... I'm sure shareholders will love to see the fall in subscriptions.
Mobile operators are not concerned yet but there was already an opt-in solution : no e-mail marketing is allowed without the victim being consentant. Great protection indeed : I receive an average 100 spam m-mails a day and according to Cetizen, 95% of mobile subs are still enjoying m-spam.

Zero paper zero tolerance

21 tons of paper could be spared if half a percent of SK Telecom's 19 M customers switched to their e-mail / wireless internet only billing service. The operator would save quite a few wons too... enough to give 100 wons to Green Korea United for each customer joining the crusade in this win-win-win-win utopia.
Even so, SKT should be careful before mass mailing bills : the MIC set at 30 million wons (about $30k) the maximum fine for mobile spammers, following the recommandations of the Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) and its Korea Spam Response Center arm.

Spamy sauce

If Monty Python made spam famous, Korea made it infamous for breaking all records on the internet variety - even on the go (last year, "mobile spam" outscored "classic spam" by a 2 to 1 ratio). Lycos, now owned by Korea's leading portal and e-mail service provider (Daum), released a new spam killer : a screensaver designed to overwhelm the spammer's servers by distributed denial of service while you're away from your computer (over 30,000 users so far). The concept is called "make love not spam", but could be dubbed "spam the spammers". Stephane MOT