Slashdot Mirror

The lab report (in english) can be found here

That's why I'm happy to live in a country with consumer protection.

Apart from the basic 2-year warranty, I usually by a 4 year insurance anyway - the risk of spilling coffee in a lappy is big enough, along with all the other crap it covers.

The problem faced by Canada and/or the USA is indicative of a more general (and therefore more difficult to solve) problem.

When a telemarketer calls you from your own country, both parties are governed by the same laws, however, many of those laws are ineffective when the caller and recipient are in different countries.

With cheap telecommunications international telemarketing is becoming more common, and consumer protection is beginning to suffer.

Take, for example, the recent spate of calls that have originated in Florida, and targetted North-West Europe. Each of these European countries has a national do-not-call list, yet international telemarketers are ignoring these lists, believing themselves to be untouchable.

It's become so bad that "the Consumer Ombudsmen from the Nordic Countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland have contacted the US Federal Trade Commission and cited concerns over some international business practices" [1][2]

1. Quote Source
2. PDF Nordic Letter to the FTC

The letter itself cites concerns over both telemarketing and general internet marketing, and illustrates that once national boundaries are crossed, the temptation to increase sales (possibly by misrpresenting the goods that are being sold) may be more than some telemarketers (or telemarketing company managers) can bear.

What is needed is a global agreement on Do-Not-Call lists. Without such an agreement, national lists will be entirely irrelevant as each company conscientiously respects it's own citizens whilst mercilessly telespamming the rest of the world.

We have anti-spam laws, but these are constructed so that it is almost impossible for an individual or a company to start a court case against a possible spammer.

OTOH we have a public institution Forbrugerombudsmanden (in danish). They accept complaints on any kind of possible spam originating from Denmark.

When too many spam complaints are directed to them they go to court against the spammer. I don't think they have ever lost a court case against spammers, and in the cases where they have won the fines have been high enough to stop the spammer and stop other possible spammers from even starting.

In two cases I know that danish spammers have stopped after I have threathened to tell Forbrugerombudsmanden.

Does it help? Well, just look at the amount of spam originating from Denmark.

We have anti-spam laws, but these are constructed so that it is almost impossible for an individual or a company to start a court case against a possible spammer.

OTOH we have a public institution Forbrugerombudsmanden (in danish). They accept complaints on any kind of possible spam originating from Denmark.

When too many spam complaints are directed to them they go to court against the spammer. I don't think they have ever lost a court case against spammers, and in the cases where they have won the fines have been high enough to stop the spammer and stop other possible spammers from even starting.

In two cases I know that danish spammers have stopped after I have threathened to tell Forbrugerombudsmanden.

Does it help? Well, just look at the amount of spam originating from Denmark.