Slashdot Mirror
Norway Bans Spam
nordicfrost writes: "Everyone in Norway has aquired a law-given right to say "no" to spam. This is also happening in other countries like Germany. The spammers have to check that the people they send advertisements to aren't on the "opt-out" list, a list centrally operated by the government's National Data Register. This means that anyone sending me something I haven't requested, faces fines and up to six months of jail time." Recently a spammer got one of my addresses and is spamming me 10 times a day. Forged everything, random everything, many different messages, only a similiarities in the subject line to tie them together. At least I can filter it, but I'd love to see this ass get 6 months of jail time, especially if he's doing this to thousands of others.
This is not "different." In fact, it is much like a denial of service attack in that it can paralyze smaller ISPs and companies when they serve as the inadvertent origin, relay, or forged "From:" domain for spam. It is also like many forms of computer fraud which are already illegal. Spammers go to great lengths to forge and mask sender information, routing information, and even web page addresses in their spam. While recipients are seldom left helpless by it, it drastically limits the way that they can use the Internet. Many will not use real addresses in Usenet postings, put a link to their e-mail address on web pages, or otherwise publically publish their e-mail address for fear of being deluged with spam.
Take the case of someone who wishes to forward his e-mail to his/her cell-phone. Spam has basically made this impossible, as spammers send huge, complex HTML messages on a regular basis. Add to that the interruptions to the recipients day as the phone goes off for one spam after another and you have a situation where a person cannot receive their e-mail in the manner that they want.
Lastly, it is theft. In the case of e-mail delivered to cell phones, it costs the recipient for each received message. When people pay for Internet use by the minute or byte, it costs them money for each piece of spam received. In this way, it is no different than the already illegal "junk faxes."
We already have legislation to protect us from other computer crimes and adding spam to that list is long overdue.
Full translation, the wording may not be perfect, but it's a long article and I'm not going to bother reading it yet another time.
Stop the e-mail adds.
By: Jon Martin Larsen
From now on, in Norway, nobody are allowed to send advertisement to your e-mail, unless you let them. Of course, it requires more than an EU adjusted law to stop the flow advertisement on the internet.
RECIEVES SPAM: Jan Ingvoldstad (28) are a student doing his main subject in computer science, and he recieves between thirty and fifty spam mails per week. Last weekend he got 17 such messages.
Make sure you trust who you give your e-mail address to. If you participate in newsgroup, mailing lists or competitions og gaming sites, then you are specially vulnerable.
The unsolicited mail which are sent to your e-mail are refered to as Spam. It has gotten it's name from an old Monthy Python sketch, where a bunch of viking constantly interrupts and sings Spam, spam, spam, lovely spam, wonderful spam.
The spam is distributed by more or less unscrupulous businesspeople which hopes to sell services and product. And their way of doing it is to fill your e-mail.
In many countries this is allready illegal, and from the 1st of march will Norway have one of the strictest regulations in this area. Other countries are Denmark, Finland, Germany, Austria and Italy. A new marketing law which is more suited to EU becomes operative and makes it illegal to send advertisments through e-mail or SMS (Short Messaging Service) unless the consumers has given their explicit permission up front.
Anyone that breaks the prohibition, will explain onesself to the consumers ombudsman. the sentences in the new marketing laws are also a lot stricter. You now risk getting large fines or up to six months in jail. Or both.
Norwegian companies and companies who markets themselves in Norway can be held responsible if they send you spam, provided you haven't explicitly requested it up front. "The consumer gets more power." concludes chief information officer Anne Nyeggen in the Data Inspectorate. "The new marketing law overlaps and surpasses the personal information law(NOTE: In Norway, it's hard getting personal information and you also need clearance for keeping databases) when it comes down to rights, and it results in a much stronger protection against advertisments and sales through e-mail and SMS."
"We think this is a kind of marketing that enters into the private areas, and thusly we think the recipients should give their permission in advance", says Harald Hilton. He is counceler in the consumer branch of the Children and family departement.
Some companies are allready following the lines of the new law. These are mainly compaines that operates partly or completely on the internet. One example is the new telephone directory on the net. You have to register to recieve information, and the e-mail address are your user name. The service is closed to accomodate the demands from the Data Inspectorate demands about protecting private information and to hinder abuse.
This means you have to identify yourself to get access. Telenor Media have been given permission to verify your identity by requesting your social security number and checking this against the national register. You are also explicitly asked if you want your e-mail to be available to others, both for private and for businesses. You are also specifically queried about if you wish to recieve unsolicited e-mails.
But Norwegian law does not govern the internet. When you are surfing the net, you have to watch out. If you find you are being massively spammed, it might be because you were careless.
When you are surfing on the net, you can easily be tempted by offers and links. You're surfing along, maybe downloading an image and you click on another link.
Don't be surprised if someone has a small data mining script on one of the pages. Such a program would attempt to gain access to your e-mail address through your browser. The address is stored, then sold, and sold and sold to everyone that wants it. And that's how you get offers from the strangest places about all kinds of weird things.