Slashdot Mirror
UK And EU May Make Unsolicited Email Illegal
An anonymous reader writes "According to this BBC article the UK and the EU are planning to making unsolicited email simply illegal. This doesn't do anything for prevention practically, but it does legally pave the way for measures that do. Lord Sainsbury of Turville admits it will do nothing to stop spam from outside the EU."
Last time I checked, UK was a part of the EU, and has been for decades. :P
Ok I did not read the article yet ,but I always thought the UK was part of the EU (not the EMU though)?
- In Memoriam: Jeroen de Bruin (1972-2004), bye bro
Your boat is subject to the legislation of its country of registration when it's in the international waters, as far as I know.
:-)
:-) )
Of course, if this country is Panama, Liberia or similar, then you don't risk much enforcement in any matter!
(Note that if some major country went in and sunk your boat, then I don't see what could happen next... I don't see Panama or Liberia going to war.
Sort of nit-picking, I know, but shouldn't that be unsolicited "commercial" email. I get heaps of unsolicited email. From friends, colleagues etc...
:-)
I would hate not to get any email that wasn't a direct response to something I sent. What would I do for 2hours every morning when I got in?
we will send an email to all potential spammers to inform them of the new laws...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I wonder where they'll draw the line of `unsolicited email'. Which mails fall under this category ? For mails like `RRApply for a online mortgage loan 247', it is clear, but if I send a mail to somebody, and this person doesn't like me, can he accuse me for sending unsolicited email ?
Or at least is targeted at the US - most of the offers I get every day are for cheap dental care, cheap medical care, loans in USD and fake diplomas from US Universities (and of course porn).
;)
This would indicate that most is from the US, so obviously this new law means F**k all, although I guess we could go for extradition or arrest them if they come to Europe on holiday
In Denmark it is already illegal for companies(but not people) to send out SPAM.
:-)
If the EU makes SPAM illegal, then spammers cannot SPAM from the EU.
US is also trying to stop SPAM.
Lets say these countries are the only ones to do something. It will still work!
Currently I put everything from china into my SPAM-folder and by golly, I'll just blacklist every country that doesn't have anti-SPAM laws.
Problem (almost) solved
-- Make software not war
Besides, it is hard to get a T1 in the middle of the ocean.
Though the article implies that this would be directed towards commercial email, it doesn't seem to explicitly say so.
:-P )
"Unsolicited email" could include personal and noncommercial messages.
Perhaps "Unsolicited Commercial Email", or even "Unsolicited Mass Email" should be addressed.
It'd be nice if the text of the proposed legislation were linked to somewhere. (This is your invitation, Gentle Reader, to post any such links of which you may have knowledge...
1. Signup for lots of pr0n sites
:)
2. Receive lots of spam
3. ???
4. Profit!
How long before someone gets their ass sued off as a result of this.
Gah i hate spam
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
What exactly is unsolicited email?
Yes i know spam but what is their definition, i dont want to get sued for sending someone an email they didnt ask for
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
...it can't (and won't) be stopped. It probably WILL be taxed, however. When these governments realize how much they could be raking in if there was a postage-like tax on spam messages, they won't be able to resist creating a broad email tax. Think, for instance, how much money postal services must be making off junk mail.
- Bill writes an angry diatribe on slashdot.org. In Bill's user profile is a link to his website, which contains his e-mail address. Joe comes across slashdot and, offended by the diatribe, writes an angry flame in disagreement and e-mails it to Bill. Bill gets upset by this and sues Joe for sending an "unsolicited e-mail".
- Bill writes an angry diatrabe on slashdot.org. In Bill's user profile is a link to his website, which contains his e-mail address. HARVESTER-BOT 3.0 comes across slashdot and, blindly following links, adds Bill's e-mail address to the database of a small business, which then e-mails Bill with an offer for herbal viagra. Bill gets upset by this and sues the business for sending an "unsolicited e-mail".
Seriously, are they actually going to try to put up this directive with no reference to "mass" or "commercial" and without any exceptions, or is this article just poorly written? What about exceptions for, like, accidentally mispelled e-mail addresses? I know that it's highly unlikely people would use the law for that reason, but writing excessively vague laws leads to big problems, as anyone following the DMCA has found.And how would this directive work in the case of some 'business' which gets some bullshit, but legal, excuse for the idea that Bill has entered into a business relationship with it, and then sends Bill spam forever without a clear sign of how to remove himself from their lists? Is there a link to the directive's actual text? Anywhere?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
EU has already made unsolicited commercial email (UCE) illegal, see article 13 of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications (2002/58/EC), after intense lobbying e.g. by EuroCAUCE.
The directive must be implemented by the member states by 31 October 2003.
(I just wrote statement [in Finnish] to the Finnish ministry of transports and communications on behalf of Electronic Frontier Finland of our proposed local implementation of the directive (which at the current form would allow ask-permission-spam (i.e. you would be allowed to send spam to ask permission to send more spam. :( )))
I didn't read the 'preview' very clearly before i posted. I'm tired. Sorry. Missing from my post which i am replying to is this point, which you may have worked out on your own:
Clearly, we want to find a way to illegalize the actions of the herbal viagra salesmen in situation 2 without illegalizing the actions of Joe in situation 1. Would this directive actually achieve that?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The poster is probably equally well informed.
Help fight continental drift.
So how do you go about sending the first email to someone? By making an unsolicited phone call first? This doesn't sound very good.
How come countries don't have nuclear bomb testing anymore? Because it affects the entire world.
Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs? The internet is worldwide and it affects us all.
We don't need an ICANN. We don't need a single police force. We just need the countries to come together and recognize that EVERYONE is involved and EVERYONE should do their part.
Both services take about three months to fully kick in following registration.
There's a loophole in the mailing one though, and a comment in another thread some time ago mentioned a way round it. Junk mail may still be delivered to 'The Occupier' by the Royal Mail. Someone a while ago mentioned there was a service to stop this too - haven't been able to find that one. Anybody know?
Cheers,
Ian
Well, Welsh rugby needs saving at the moment, but their soccer team is doing ok.
Ah you meant Whales.
Under the directive unsolicited e-mails may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and "with their prior consent" or where there is an existing customer relationship.
As I read this - and INAL - a company you have already bought something from can spam the living daylights out of you if it's "direct marketing" (however they define that). I'll guess I'll keep my spam-trap (email-adress used solely for giving away on the web while regristring, subscribing, shopping and so on) for a while longer. The hazzle of scimming thru it the first few days after making a purcase for the comfirmationorder outweights the hazzle of getting 'legal spam' in my real inbox...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I heard some of the debate in Parliament on Radio 4 last night (I think, I was sleepy). I recall hearing an MP (member of parliament) suggesting in all seriousness that since faxes are supposed to have a reply address, requiring this for email would help matters. His heart is in the right place, no complaints there, but it shows how worryigly easy it is to pass inappropriate technology legislation if the legislators aren't clued up to understand the subtleties.
Currently I put everything from china into my SPAM-folder and by golly, I'll just blacklist every country that doesn't have anti-SPAM laws.
The interesting thing is this: let's say that the U.S. and EU do both ban spam, and all the spam is coming from outside the U.S. and EU. A *lot* of people will react the same way you do.
That is to say, we'll suddenly see a lot more careless e-mail blocks being placed on large swaths of entire countries, some by individuals, and most likely often by ISPs. We already see a LOT of huge e-mail blocks being done by ISPs, especially AOL, without much concern for collateral damage; it isn't inconcievable that a number of random ISPs might just look at their statistics and shortsightedly go, hmm, 90% of our spam comes from (for example) Indonesia, who is going to be talking to people in Indonesia anyway, i'll just block the whole country (or maybe just most of their IP space).
Once this starts happening, internet users and businesses in (for example) Indonesia are suddenly going to start discovering that they are having trouble communicating with the U.S., and this is because of spammers in their country. I find it likely that if this happens, their response will be to complain to their government to do something about the spammers that are making the americans block them... until one day, spam is illegal in indonesia as well, and shortsighted ISPs in indonesia are going, hey, all my spam's coming from Myanmar, why don't i just block e-mail from there..
So if the US or EU ever adopted real antispam laws, it could start a big domino effect that would cause a lot of other countries to adopt antispam laws as well.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
These spammers clearly represent a threat to freedom, diversity and sanctity worldwide. We must be swift and decisive in the coming days. A crippling onslaught of spamming faces us and we must stand proud in its defiance.
We must act with haste to bring these spammers to justice. Must we wait for the "smoking gun" of a mushroom cloud? Victory can only be ours if we crush these spammers with our military might.
</bushspeek>and syria.
This comment is fully compliant with RFC 527.
In Denmark we have had a law against unsolicited commercial email for some time. The law was originally against fax spam, but has been extended to cover email too.
I guess this can kill off email in Europe. This is absurd. Any email can be considered unsolicited.
.smell my feet.
something I'm kind of curious about with regards to driving in the EU is how the people handle the left-right change. Say, for example, you drive from the UK to France or vice-versa... do the lanes swap as you enter the other country, or... what happens? aren't there a lot of accidents with people driving on the wrong side of the road if they're in the UK for business, etc?
This directive was first published in the middle of last year, I don't know why it's suddenly become newsworthy. The anti-spam campaigners have done well, though. As far as EU companies go, email will be opt-in for the whole European Economic Area (which includes the European Union). I'd like to thank the people who have put in so much effort to bring about this result.
Another interesting legal change comes with the Electronic Commerce Directive, which removes ISP's liability when they are acting as a "mere conduit" for illegal information. This is already in force, and marks the end of Godrey v Demon.
This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess. Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source] ============= Headline: Expensive to spam Text: In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristriction. 100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax. That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax. The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts. Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr. "We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen. Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue. Consumers not pleased While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads. "It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere. In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only. Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services. In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts. But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails. With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails. Ready for more cases If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark. At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions. The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law. This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector. =============
I signed up with the various *PS preference serviecs but unfortunately still get spam.
The worst one is phone calls. I moved into a rented place a few years back and took over the phone there. Then, when I moved to a house I was actually buying I thought I'd pay the small fee to transfer the number, because everyone knew it by now.
Unfortunately the last person to use the number before me (A Mr. Brown) seems to have signed up to everything in the universe, given them his phone number and not ticked the "Oh God, please do not phone me" box on them all.
So now I get lots of calls that go like this:
spammer: is that mr. brown?
me: no. This has not been mr. brown's number for at least 3 years.
spammer: well, i wonder if you might be interested anyway. we're doing a promotion on gym membership...
me: please remove my number from your database and do not call it again.
So you see, the problem is that the phone number was "tainted" by this Mr. Brown; now all these calls are not technically "unsolicited", because he signed up and gave permission for them to call him.
I have a similar problem with email spam. I actually get very little spam, but nearly all of it is from companies where I used my email address to sign up for something and forgot to tick the damn box for "do not spam me", or from companies who got the email address from them. The reason I continue to get spam from them is because their unsubscribe procedure fails.
OK, that's phone spam and email spam. Now for letter spam. I get lots of this, most of which is unavoidable. Some of it is addressed to the person who lived in the house before me, but most of it is random leaflets advertising stuff that the postal delivery person is forced to deliver along with my mail, or that comes with the local paper (open paper, 5000 leaflets fall out, you know how it goes).
Anyway, my point is that spam, in all forms is not necessarily "unsolicited". It may be unwanted, but it could be that at some point either you or someone before you FAILED TO TICK THE BOX.
graspee
Funny to read this story.
Today I have been working hard promoting a hardware product of mine - therefor I harvested e-mail addresses from a trade website, of computer companies interested in import and export, and wrote a script to send a standard e-mail to every single one of them (about 1700 mails).
Is this spam? I don't know. Many companies do appreciate the message, as after this I am talking to like 10-20 companies. And that is only Asia, and a bit EU, as the USA is still asleep.
Is this spam?
It is mass mailing. It is unsollicited. But it is not sent purely at random, as I searched targeted. Just like sending out direct mail or fax broadcast. It would be really damaging for many businesses if this action would be illegal!
Wouter.
The simplest solution would be to require non-EU email to show its passport prior to entry to the EU.
I don't think that Luxembourg and Austria have that much of a navy ;)
(/me gets out a map and looks up Turville.)
Also i thought from the picture they were blaming natural keyboards for spam... phew, i have one of those.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Maybe a new SMTP header can be required to contain the recipient's secret "Solicitor's ID". But then, some money-grubbing person could just delete or alter it and claim to the court that it was never there. I'm not an encryption expert, but there's got to be some way with hashes and PGP or something to prove this.
In the process, you'll first have to prove that the e-mail was actually sent from the sender it claims to be sent from so that you're accusing the right party and the sender can't deny it. Then you'll have to prove that the e-mail's data wasn't somehow altered in transit, whether maliciously or by transmission error, which could botch your methods of authentication.
Another issue is:
By what criteria is an e-mail solicited: sender, subject matter, or both? I might have solicited a receipt from Amazon when I made a purchase, but not Amazon's marketing for related products. I might like to solicit e-mail from anybody about low-priced flat panel monitors, but not any other kind of e-mail from the senders with this material.
And what about combined content? Some solicited, some not. What about domains collectively owned by a number of parties, one of which is on my white list? This thing is going to be a legal quagmire. This legislation is going to have to be thousands of pages long to explain how all of this is going to work.
One more thing... If they require some kind of encryption or special e-mail header, they'll have to make another law requiring all companies and developers who make software with e-mail functionality to change their programs to bundle or imbed whatever special code the government dictates.
How will Spammers be processed by the legal system?
What evidence can be presented in court?
It will cost more than it is worth to go to court for each offence. Electronic evidence can easily be forged. Prosecutors would probably need to confiscate the Hardware still containing data that is damming to get a conviction.
What happens to users who accidentally break the law? Damage was done. "I did not know better" will not protect you with most laws. At what point is a completely unsecured relaying computer constitute negligence and thereby vulnerability to prosecution?
I doubt any old style law system will stop this. Thethanks Google. The world makes sense again.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
It would be nice if it were possible, but it isn't going to happen.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
Actually unsolicited marketing using automated telecommunication devices that targets individuals is considered illegal in Finnish penal code. So sending unsolicited Sms/fax/Email is a crime in Finland, if you are using lists of addresses/numbers or other ways of "mass posting". Laki yksityisyyden suojasta televiestinnässä ja teletoiminnan tietoturvasta 22.4.1999/565 (in Finnish)
++K
<[letter kay][at][number seventy seven][dot][finnish TLD]>
i'm in the uk and at the moment about 98% of the spam i get is from outside the EU (read: america).
perhaps this is because EU people are content with the size of their penii.
it depends what they would make illegal really, would they make it illegal for eu based companies to send spam or make it illegal for spam to sent from the eu. still, it's a start anyways and if we eliminate spam then good.
what is defined as unsolicitated tho will have to be looked at.
Well, its a good theory, but it is kinda pointless isnt it?
.ca, .com, and .uk domains looking for boxes with port 25 open (smtp) and then mail to all of them. And boom, Bill is in a lot of trouble, not only did he send unsolicited emails, he sent them to over a millon accounts! Bill sure is in alot of shit! Maybe he shouldnt have pissed me off....
Dont get me wrong, i'm all for anything that makes those guys who have the "wonderful drug to enhance my penis" suffer a little....but this really is one of those unenforceable laws.
First of all, how do we catch these people? as it stands now, most spam and unsolicited email is modified so that the mail headers read the reply to and the X-originating-ip have false values. Or just moving my mailserver to another country were these laws dont apply.
Moreover, I can change the mail headers of mail going out, whats to prevent me from forging them? That way if bill pisses me off, I can forge email headers to make the email look like its coming from bill...then i can set a simple script to pingsweep the
Not to mention not all unsolited email is bad. A few days ago I got an unsolited email from someone wanting me to do some work for them (a prospective client). Now in a business were yhe more clients the better, i dont want prospective clients haveing to be at all squimish about sending me an unsoliceted email looking for my services because if i dont like it i can have them charged, or fined, or something. Or that if the wrong eyes sees it they could be fined or charge, or somethimg. And in a business were clients come from all over the world, and in an on-demand era, email really is the only fesiable way to contact someone in the general sense.
There are a few other problems, but based on these 3 i think we can see perhaps this isnt the best anti-spam approach.
Not a bad idea IMO. It'll stop SPAM from within, and bring slightly closer to home for ISPs and open relays etc the question, "So why are you shipping in shedloads of illegal email?" and hopefully raise interest in providing a TECHNICAL solution to the problem which is what we have needed all along. Of course, they may be able to hide behind "common carrier", but until that is proven ISPs may just be sufficiently vulnerable to do something about SPAM.
Ok ok, forged headers etc. So what's so difficult about Server B getting mail from Server A for Server C and checking that From=Server A and To=Server C? (oversimplification I know, but I would have thought it would be a piece of cake to reject email with forged headers).
Slightly OT but - Not many UK residents know that there is an opt out service for snail mail spam run by the mail preference service. I signed up about two months ago and my junk mail has been reduced to almost nothing. Also all the banks and utilities I've contacted so far have stopped sending me their junk.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
I don't think this is a good plan, as even unsolicited email has legitimate uses that could be damaged.
I'd much rather a decent cryptographic web of trust for mail relays was established, with all messages digitally signed by all the relays they pass through.
Yes, this would destroy privacy. But privacy and freedom are actually fundamentally opposed, as pointed out by David Brin.
in Poland it's already illegal.
So I can still e-stalk someone since there is nothing commercial about it.
And what do you think his point was?
...spam is called "Royal with cheese"... due to the metric system
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
> Why don't all the countries come together to
> eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?
In other news, the first plutonium pits since 13 years ago were just produced inside the USA.
(A plutonium pit is the core of a nuclear warhead.)
The UK is part of the EU.
At least, now and then and for the
time being...
Grtz
There's a potential loophoole with BULK.
I get a few commerical spams daily, each apparently coming from some nonexistant person on our network or on Yahoo and having been addresses to me alone. It is likely that the sender is forging email headers, making 'bulk' solicitations seem 'personal'.
How does this proposal address such a situation? (Nope, didn't read the article yet!)
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Spamming is illegal in Italy, and fined with up to 5000 Euro per incident!
The problem is USA: I cannot repeat it often enough: although about half of spam comes from open relays in Korea or China, most of it really originates in USA and is intended for USA citizens (which seem to be bankrupt, overweight an have a small penis). Other countries (like all of the EU!) already have laws which prohibit spamming - and we know they work.
Now, if only the USA would get through a similar law, the rest of the world would get rid of 90% of all spam!
BTW: I don't get hardly any spam from Europe (I get about 60 a day!), and if I get some, I am entitled to cash 250 Euros from the spammer... it works!
ms
This will also allow them to impound assets and fine them heavily. So, the next time a florida spammer takes a holiday in the EU, they will be brought in and arrested. I doubt whether non-virus sending spammers could be extradited though...
rd
Coming back to topic, yes, Britain is in the EU, but there isn't an EU-wide police force so member states still have to make their own laws. Um, that wasn't the topic either.
How enforceable is any new law going to be? At one extreme, if the spammers are outside the EU in a country where spamming is not illegal, then they could never be brought to trial as there would be no grounds for extradition. At the other extreme, if a partner dumps you, will you be sent to prison for e-mailing them to find out what is going on? [movie plot developing.....]
Phone numbers do get re-used; it's unavoidable. So do IP addresses, but e-mail addresses are (fairly) unique. Well, this is my own attempt at a way of making e-mail addresses *completely* unique when displayed on a Web page - thereby preventing harvesting of addresses from websites.
It doesn't stop you getting the first spam sent to a particular unique address, but it does stop spammers from selling addresses on because you can just set procmail recipes on your POP3 host to block known harvested addresses to which no legitimate user is ever going to send mail.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source]
=============
Headline: Expensive to spam
Text:
In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristrictions.
100 Dkr [= 13,46] per illegal email or telefax.
That's how the Sea- and Merchant Court judged a case against Fonn Danmark A/S for violating the marketing law regarding transmittal of unrequested adverts as email or telefax.
The case is the first in Denmark regarding so called spam adverts.
Even though the Consumer Ombudsman had demanded 200.000 Dkr [= 26,935] from the Norwegian company, Consumer Ombudsman Hagen Jørgensen is still happy about the fine, which the court settled at 15000 Dkr.
"We would have liked to see a larger fine, but considering how small the company is, and the fact that the judgement is for 156 spams only, the fine isn't that bad", says Hagen Jørgensen.
Reasons for the size of the fine are many. Amongst others the Sea- and Merchant Court have considered the concrete number of violations, if the company has known about the laws regarding this issue and the size of the company's revenue.
Consumers not pleased
While the Consumer Ombudsman seems reasonable pleased, the judgement makes Aktive Forbrugere [Active Consumers] shake their heads.
"It cannot be considered fair that a company can transmit large amounts of adverts and get off with a fine of 15000 Dkr. Neither can it be considered fair that it is the consumers who need the do something to raise a case like this", says Ole Tange, IT executive at Aktive Forbrugere.
In the case versus Fonn Danmark the company has admitted to transmit 10000 to 15000 emails. Nevertheless the judgement considers the 156 documented emails only.
Part of the case is that Fonn Danmark several times were told that they were violating 6a of the marketing law, which clearly states that without prior consent, companies are not allowed to contact someone by electronic mail, automatic dialing systems or telefax for the purpose of selling goods or services.
In the reminder from the Sea- and Merchant Court it was told that Fonn Danmark was also punished for unnecesarily having stolen peoples' time by forcing them to read and process the unrequested adverts.
But Ole Tange feels that the notion of making a distinction because of Fonn Danmark's size and the number of documented spams opens the floodgates for future abuse of spam emails since it is hard to imagine cases where consumers or the Consumer Ombudsman manages to collect the 100000 of emails which are apparently necesary to increase the size of the fine to a level where it becomes unattractive for companies to speculate in spam-emails.
With last Thursday's judgement, the Consumer Ombudsman hopes companies will think again before they push the button and send unsolicited emails.
Ready for more cases
If the companies dare it anyway, the Consumer Ombudsman is ready to sue. If sent by smaller companies, the Ombudsman will typically contact them and remind them of the law, while larger companies will usually face the police immediately, Special Consultant for the Consumer Office Peter Fogh Knudsen tells. He was the one running the case against Fonn Danmark.
At the moment, Peter Fogh Knudsen estimates that 3 to 4 similar cases are running in other juristrictions.
The Consumer Office also requests Danes to forward spam to spam@fs.dk because that is the most effective way of collecting the documentation for possible violatings of the marketing law.
This judgement for the Danish market comes at a time when Microsoft, AOL Time Warner and Yahoo jointly exclaim spam as the largest threat against the IT sector.
=============
Some countries limit extradition for acts that are not crimes there too, but local spammer-country law might not necessarily have to specify imprisonment as a penalty.
Of course I Am Not A Lawyer. Otherwise my code of ethics would prevent me from giving free legal opinions :-)
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Unlike the states EU laws tend not to be taken at 100% face value also it says any any hand writen mail to a single person is ok (so if you write it your self your excempt any way) spamers wont spend time typing out a message 3 million times its impractical to do so this law will not stop spam just give the companys that use it one mnore reason not to and will hopefully reduce it.
Listen. You're probably a nice guy and everything, but you just don't think very clearly, do you?
Commercial spam, which is what this proposed law targets, is called commercial because they're SELLING SOMETHING. There is always a phone number, or a website, or somewhere to go, where you pay money to get stuff. This is really quite simple, so I'm sorry if I'm going to fast for you.
So, when a person gets spam, then the law simply goes to the business involved, and fucks them up.
It's that simple. No amount of faked headers, etc. will help. As a last resort, they go after the company who bills your credit card.
This is a great idea that will, unfortunately, fall by the wayside because of idiots like you.
Thanks for your comments, back to your safe little admin job now.
The new law will make 'opt-out' agreements (your 'failing to tick the box' types) illegal.
Users will have to specifically consent to receiving spam email.
That is the whole point.
FYI, cold-calling/direct phone marketing is also illegal in the UK except for a very small handful of companies who have somehow gained a specific exemption.
Cheers.
This debate was featured on BBC radio's "Today in Parliament" last night. One of the speakers expressed horror at the thought the government's efforts at "e-democracy" (whatever that is) might be derailed if MPs had to actually ask permission of the recipients to spew their unwanted, patronising lying garbage into millions of UK email boxes. I await the pending law with interest, particularly to see whether MPs are exempt..
After all the EU won't let us have cucumbers with curves in them.
Or was it bananas, totally irrelevant anyway since it turned out to be another fabrication by the media.
For example, say some tickets for a popular sports event or music concert were made available on the day of the event. Or perhaps, cheap airline seats were made available.
A vendor really only has the choice of email to promote this availability. As a potential customer, I would be mightily pissed off if I was told that I'd lost the chance of getting a ticket for the big World Cup game because of anti-spamming laws
Obviously, the porn. penis extensions, Nigerian spam etc are intrusive and clog up mailboxes, but how does one frame the law to distinguish between 'good' spam and 'bad' spam?
No still not good enough. I don't think it's ok for a million (millions) of people to get spammed because you are too lazy to do your own research. However, if it was $10 tickets for the Ottawa Senators in the Stanley Cup finals...hmmm .... No, it's temping...but no....it's still wrong.
I make a reasonable middle-class wage by going to work and not spamming blogs with scams.
Funny how my post gets modded as Flamebait, rather than the ignorant rant that provoked me to post.
I don't know about the rest of the EU however the UK has a small claims court system where taking if this comes into law it means that, assuming you can prove the identiy, means that for small amount, you can sue the spammers for their spamming. Which is nice
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
As a general remark, UK is a member of EU.
"...a single unarmed vessel FILLED TO THE BRINK WITH MASS-MAILING TERRORIST SCUM is not match for the combined naval capabilities of, ohh, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Austria..."
The Swiss navy has been at war with spammers for years...
Of course this just means that more and more vendors will modify their EULA to make it so you opt-in when you install their product and then create some silly way that you can unsubscribe from their opt-in network. Of course the only way to find it is to read all of their EULA.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
from my own experience, SMTP is good for trusted environments, where don't have to worry with ppl abusing the system, this means a pre-commercial internet when the only users were govt, big companies and academia.
now the situation is completelly diferent, and SPAM exists because is easy to abuse the SMTP standard and forge messages.
some flaws inherent to SMTP:
- it knows nothing about users.
There's nothing in RFC822 (or even RFC2822) that says a mail transport agent (MTA. think on sendmail, exchange...) must check if the user sending the message really exists. things like authentication exists only to ensure the server isn't being used by unauthorized people but it leaves the task of filling the "From:" header to the mail user application (MUA, think eudora, outlook, pine, mutt...). the correct would be the MTA to authenticate the user and fill the "From:" header itself leaving only the "Reply-to:" as an optional to the MUA to fill.
- There's no way for the receiving MTA to check if the message is valid.
One way to implement this is to make the "Message-Id:" mandatory and formated in a standard way, and implement in the messaging protocal a way to check it against the sending domain's MX (Mail eXchange). it'll work like this: mydomain.com.br receives a message with "Message-Id: 1234567890@your-domain.com". then my MTA would do a DNS lookup for your-domain.com's MX and ask it if it realy sent mesage "1234567890@your-domain.com". if the answer is "no" my MTA would drop the message.
- The envelope can be easilly forged.
The envelope is the part of message that contains information such as the sender, the subject, from where the message came, and so on.
Each MTA fills the envelope it's own way (IMHO Qmail is lousy on this). the envolope should should follow a rigid standard, containing information of sender, originating IP, user and maybe even a digital signature of both the user and the server issued by some acredited institution.
even messages generated by some proccess running on the same server (such as mailforms or webmail applications that write messages directly to the mail queue) would be subject to a rigid header checking/rewriting by the MTA to ensure it's valid.
- Messages from the obsolete (current) version of the protocol would be tagged accordingly leaving to the recipient the decision of accepting or refusing them.
how would this few additions to the mail protocol help stop SPAM ? well, it wont. but it'll help prevent forged messages or spoofed headers and make it easy to filter messages while they'll still on the server.
making it hard for spammers to hide themselves behind fake From's or Received's would reduce the efficiency of their junk, leaving only honest, respectuff mail-marketers (if there is such a thing) on the business.
but then, this is just my humble opinion. I still have to work this out, but i think it'd be a nice subject for a colege term paper, and i still have 3 years to prepare it.
What ? Me, worry ?
"Fog in (English) channel: continent isolated." P.
What about Unsolicited snail mail? and phone calls. If we're going to bust these spammers chops, I think it's only fair to go after everyone.
What was your username again? -BOFH
it's a mirror conspiracy!
There's no problem with the train and which side of the track they use at all. Both France and the UK have their trains on the left track. Just like Belgium and Switzerland. Germany, Austria and The Netherlands use the right track. ;)
The other track is for the opposite traffic
I don't care what you're selling. If you send me unsolicited commercial email then you are a scumbag and I will rejoice upon learning of your death.
Why is it that everyone cries for the RIAA to "find a better technological business model" when trying to pass laws limiting piracy, but now the same people all want laws to outlaw spam instead of finding a better technological solution to prevent it....
I'm the last person to defend the RIAA, but what's right is right.
The UK is a member state of the EU...so why does the headline read "UK *and* EU"?!
EU != Europe mainland....it means European Union.
AND...the UK is in Europe, despite not being on the main continental mass.
-psy
"Is all unsolicited mail bad?"
Yes. It wastes time and bandwidth. I don't care what the product is: football tickets (as interesting as any other spam product to me), miniature cameras, penis enlargement potions, whatever, if I didn't ask to be told about it, it is bad. It also sets the alarm bells ringing: why should a legitimate company with a valuable product have to resort to random messaging to sell its goods?
If you have actually signed up for a service it shouldn't be illegal.
BUT, and this will make my but look big, asking to be signed up for a service shouldn't be as easy as putting an email address in a box on a web page. This method is too easily faked.
A better solution would be requiring any company using mass emailings to ask for an emailed application from a potential recipient which must be kept on record (a task no more onerous than keeping tax records). The email application should expressly ask for a specific set of services, and not be taken as implied approval for other services not directly specified or inclusion in an on-sold email list. The practice of forging headers should be right out, and penalties for this should extend to companies commissioning spam campaigns as well as spammers themselves.
"For example, say some tickets for a popular sports event or music concert were made available on the day of the event"
Then I would think that the promotion agency handling that event were a complete bunch of morons who don't deserve a percentage of my money. Ever noticed that (in the case of music events, at least) an artist will announce a certain number of shows at first, then announce one or two extra concerts later on? Guess what, those shows were planned all along; there was no sudden realization "wow, those tickets sold quicker than we thought, maybe we should put on more shows". The venue was already booked (or an option was taken to reserve the venue), PA systems are already hired. A promotions agency that suddenly finds it has 2000 extra tickets they didn't know about is seriously incompetent, and probably aren't capable of organizing a good show anyway.
"Or perhaps, cheap airline seats were made available"
Thats what standby lists are for. They have worked perfectly well without email for years. In fact, if you are sitting by a computer waiting for a last minute cancellation, you probably won't make it to the airport in time for the flight.
"A vendor really only has the choice of email to promote this availability."
Unless you're selling tickets to an emergency appendectomy, you will know all the details: time, place, number of patrons, etc, and you will plan your marketing and sales accordingly. No vendor on earth has only the choice of email. It is actually that simple.
"I would be mightily pissed off if I was told that I'd lost the chance of getting a ticket for the big World Cup game because of anti-spamming laws"
Does this mean you would be happy to recieve spam with forged headers from a scalper with 5 tickets to sell at 10 times the normal price? If so, please check out the bridge I am currently auctioning on ebay. Since most sporting events are handled by a single ticketing agency, it is fairly easy to establish whether tickets are available. Besides which, if you have 10,000 potential customers, and only 100 tickets which are already being advertised on your web site, you probably won't need a mass emailing to sell them. The tickets would probably sell at the gate within minutes; a mass emailing could take an hour of someone's paid time to assemble.
"...how does one frame the law to distinguish between 'good' spam and 'bad' spam?"
Simple. If it arrives in your mailbox, it is bad. If the party sending it can demonstrate, to the satisfaction of a court of law, that they had a specific request from you, in the form of an email with verifiable headers and time stamps, then it is good. Oh, wait, that's not "unsolicited" is it?
Why should I have to clean the crud out of my mailbox every day just because you are too lazy to do your own research? If you want World Cup tickets, you go looking (IMO, you can't be much of a fan if you wait for them to make a direct offer to you).
I have a sign at the front of my house (in the south of England), provided by the police. It basically says "No buying or selling at this door. If you are here to sell me something, go away."
Yet I get dozens of salespeople knocking on my door, wasting my time.
How does this happen? Simple: all these salespeople claim they don't want to sell me anything. Instead, they want me to arrange an appointment, or complete a survey, or give my opinion of the company's products, or sign for a free offer etc. The selling comes later.
Email spammers can use the same tricks. They need not sell sleazy products directly. They can just provide information about where those products can be bought.
In either case, a dumb recipient can buy the product. But unless there's an obvious offer to sell, it could be difficult to prove that an email is "for the purposes of direct marketing".
Of course, before 1918, Austria (or, more accurately, the Austro-Hungarian Empire) wasn't landlocked.
You realize that makes it illegal for you to email someone before contacting them in the real world, don't you?
What's this Submit thingy do?
More interesting to me was the Great Chocolate Battle, whether UK milk chocolate was allowed to be labelled as chocolate, or vegetable fat with chocolate flavouring :-) that lasted for years. I doubt Hersheys (a US brand of chocolate) would even be considered as chocolate flavoured :-)
On a side note, the metric system has been legal in the UK for over a hundred years, but some people are a bit slow.
The problem with this is ... Most e-mails, even the non-spam ones aren't "solicited". Let's say I see a post on a usenet group and decide to reply by an e-mail conversation with the author because I feel what I'm going to talk about is a bit off-topic for the group. So I do so. Ta-Da that e-mail is unsolicited. The other person never contacted me and said, "please send me e-mail." Let's say I finally find the e-mail address of my sister that I've been searching for for weeks, and I send her a "how's it going" message. That's unsolicited. She never contacted me and said, "please send me this e-mail."
There's a real chicken-and-egg problem here. If only solicited e-mails are allowed, then how do you send the first e-mail to begin an exchange?
Getting rid of spam is a fine goal, but trying to define spam in a way that doesn't also cover legitimate uses of e-mail is impossible.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It will be great to see the first criminal trial of a spammer.
Now I 'll get all of Europe's spam too?
Flame: A post that is antagonistic in character. This is generally pointed toward a specific person or group and is hostile.
Troll: post intended to derive a reaction from a certain segment of slashdotters. The difference between a troll anbd a flame is that the author isn't serious, and, assuming the troll is well-crafted, this can be discerned from the post itself. Also, the post isn't personal in nature, and isn't usually hostile.
Joke: a post that attempts some sort of humor. It generally doesn't attempt to get anyone riled up, and is generally straightforward in nature - distinguishing it from a troll, whose humor lies in deception.
So let's analyze g-parent's post:
First, is it serious? No. G-parent isn't really in international waters as his post claims. Is it a troll OR flamebait? Not likely. No one is insulted. No strange and wacky belief is espoused or even belittled. The only possible group that is flamed or trolled is spammers.
Second, assuming spammers took offense, would this have been a flame or a troll? Well, there's certainly no deception present. Did we think he really was a spammer? Not likely. So, moderators, that COULD NOT HAVE BEEN a troll.
Now, moderators, when you go to mod me down, do it correctly. Is this post deceptive? No. So it's not a troll. Is it on topic? Well, not really. So you could mod me down off-topic. Is it redundant? No, haven't seen this post elsewhere recently. Is it a flame? Probably, as a specific group of people have been attacked (namely, the fuckwit who moderated parent's post). So when you mod me down, do it right.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat