Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up?

templeton069 writes "Alston (the Australian Communications Minister) has been lambasted as the 'world's greatest Luddite' for a long time but the spam bill introduced to the Australian Parliament last week seems to have struck an almost magical balance with everyone from the Internet Industry Association, the Coalition Against Bulk Unsolicited Email and the Direct Marketing Association, suggesting that it is about as good as it gets. So what's the story -- can you go from Luddite to pin-up in one step? And more importantly, does the legislation provide a template for other jurisdictions to implement low-pain anti-spam legislation?"

Comments

Count your change, daughters and pets

[AndroidCat]

If the Direct Marketing Association likes it, then something is wrong. Odds are, there's a weasel clause that basically defines spam as "that which the DMA doesn't do".

They don't mind banning those sleezy low-life spammers, but don't wish to restrict the targeted e-marketting of ethical businesses...

I suppose I should read the article, but I bet it takes less than a minute to find the escape hatch in this law. I'll be back...

Re:Count your change, daughters and pets

[charvolant]

If the Direct Marketing Association likes it, then something is wrong. Odds are, there's a weasel clause that basically defines spam as "that which the DMA doesn't do".

Kind of true. Straight telephone use is explicitly excluded (section 5.5). Section 6.7 also allows other messages to be administratively excluded -- which is perfectly sensible, as it allows oddities to be fixed up without resort to a new law.

However, this is a bill that outlaws spam, not all kinds of direct marketing. Why wouldn't the DMA be delighted? It solves a major public relations headache for them.

Re:major problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment might sound a little whiney to some moderators, but it raises a very important point. There is nothing stopping a team of unscrupulous direct marketers opening a "non-profit" organization that does the actual spamming dirty work on behalf of the parent organization. This is a huge hole in the legislation that needs to be fixed.

Easier solution

[TLouden]

Just ignore it all. Everyone is making such a big deal of spam. A simple filter get's it all for me and I've got my email in some odd places. Why don't you focus that animosity towards something more damaging like the fricken flyers on every lamp post saying "10K+ a month, part time, work from home"???

Re:Easier solution

[gregmac]

Why don't you focus that animosity towards something more damaging like the fricken flyers on every lamp post saying "10K+ a month, part time, work from home"???

How is that "more damaging" ? While yes, it's perhaps ugly to see flyers stuck up all over the place, they're just visual - you can easily ignore them by not looking at them.

It's like banner ads on webpages. It doesn't take much to become conditioned to ignoring them. When ads first started appearing in the middle of article text, they were very obtrusive and annoying. Now people are used to them, and it's easy to skip right past. Your brain just instantly says 'thats an ad, no interest to me' with perhaps the slight few that get your attention somehow. (And note to banner desingers/PHB's/whatever: that doesn't mean flashing graphics! That actually makes it worse, your brain just treats it as 'white noise' and totally blocks it out).

I can notice this effect personally (and I'm sure many others can too) when I start reading an article that has an image for a headline (instead of using HTML). I'll be reading, and thinking 'what the hell is this about?' because to me, it just seemed to dive right into whatever it is talking about.. I'll have to sit back and take an overview of the page, then suddenly I realize that the headline is in giant letters right at the top. The problem was, my brain filtered it out just like it would for an ad or any other crap they stick in.

Back to the flyers-vs-spam issue: while flyers are something you can look past and ignore, spam is something that you have to directly deal with. Perhaps it's pressing delete, perhaps it's setting up a filter (and hoping it doesn't catch anything legitimate). To take it to the real world, spam is less like flyers on lampposts, and more like a door-to-door salesman. Forces you to answer the door, and deal with him (slamming the door, to telling him what hole to put whatever he's selling in).

I'd much rather have to ignore 40 flyers (by turning my eyes to another direction) than deal with even a couple salesman every day.

It won't make a lot of difference

[dbIII]

Web cacheing is apparently illegal in Australia too is you take one of the laws to it's logical conclusion. That deparment doesn't have a good history in drafting legislation (or anything really).

I don't think we'll see anything slow down until the first procecution.

Maybe we'll all have to put NO JUNK MAIL on our web pages to show we've put some effort into informing the miscreants.

It goes to show however, that once an IT issue directly annoys a minister it gets results. The more IT issues become mainstream the better.

what about open relays?

[piscoBandito]

(1) For the purposes of this Act, a person does not send an electronic message, or cause an electronic message to be sent, merely because the person supplies a carriage service that enables the message to be sent.

So.. does this mean that people running and/or responsible for open-relays aren't responsible for the traffic that goes through them?

His $4 million website.

[sr180]

For those that dont remember, Richard Alston is the Communications Minister that spent $4 million on a website. I dont car how many good deeds he does, he is still the worlds worst luddite. References for those who dont remember: $4 million website or $4 million website And he couldnt even spend that money on the local economy. His view of technology is that it has to be done with the big multi-national companies, local ones dont even get a look in (see the whirlpool link). Obviously the companies prefered are the ones that are likely to hire him as a consultant either now or later on.

Defending SPAM and Condemning Detractors

[tjstork]

I'm looking for ways to get hits on my site, and, that $50 for 300,000 targetted opt-in emails is looking better all the time.

All this legislation does is make it more expensive for spammers, not less likely. Right now, because email is so cheap, eventually spammers will succumb under their own weight because they can't make a profit in an industry where price competition exists.

But now, with opt in mailing lists, you've created a thing of value for spammers to own, and to sell or rent.

Way to go spam legisltatures. You've just turned a nuisance into the next mega industry!

Big F*cking Loophole

[nfras]

You are also exempt if:
the message relates to goods or services; and
(c) the body is the supplier, or prospective
supplier, of the goods or services concerned.

Holy Shit. That means that I have the right to send you email if I have something that I want to sell you, or think I might want to sell you. I think I might want to sell a penis enlarger. I will now email these 2 million people to see if they would be interested. Hey, the law lets me do it as long as I let you unsubscribe and say who I am.

Re:Spam bill good, but overall still a Luddite

[The OPTiCIAN]

I agree with hist stance on broadband, and I think you've misrepresented it. What he said was that for the public to fund broadband to every home was stupid. And it is. If people want broadband they should do what I have to do, and hand over the cash for it.

The government has no role making taxpayers fork out so other people can get broadband, particularly when a large percentage of the population doesn't have a computer and fewer still have need of broadband.

The ALP would never have implemented that policy.

In the same way, I don't think the Australian government has any role in "first home-buyers grants" or other incentives that skew the market for no (publicly) good reason.

this already happens in the telemarketing industy

[DiveX]

Per the TCPA (47 USC 227) prerecorded calls may be made by, or on behalf of, non-profit organizations. Since debt-consolidation agencies have to be non-profit there are people that create or run two companies for the purpose of getting around this. Integrated Credit Solutions (Flagship) is engaged in the business of marketing and providing call center support for tax-exempt organizations such as Lighthouse Credit Foundation. Lighthouse Credit Foundation, is the "tax-exempt non-profit organization" in whose "behalf" ICS makes the calls.

They are located in the very same building, have the same in-house counsel, and are breaking the law by trying to use smoke and mirrors. Each have their hands in the pockets of the other, and it isn't just to take a dollar out. Of course most aren't buying it, including the attorney generals of several states;
New York http://www.state.ny.us/governor/ltgov/press99/marc h8_02.htm
Massachusetts http://www.ago.state.ma.us/press_rel/ics.asp?head1 =Press+Releases&section=5
Florida
http://myflori dalegal.com/lit_ec.nsf/0/96159EA0F81 DA9E885256A8700650763?OpenDocument
Missouri
http ://www.ago.state.mo.us/071201.htm

Some wrong, some right

[ajs]

Ok, so this bill has some bad:

"Address-harvesting software must not be supplied, acquired or used"

Making a class of software illegal regardless of its use or usefullness is wrong. Period.

As to address-harvesting, I've written my share of address-harvesting software that was for perfectly legitimate reasons (statistics usually, though for anti-spam reasons in one case).

There is good in the bill though. It seeks to regulate a few things oddly (e.g. requiring "unsubscribe" facilities is pointless when almost all mailings are one-time events) but does avoid trying to regulate the way mail is formed and does leave legitimate forgery available to the average mail sender. There is one common form of forgery that this makes illegal, and I might have to have a talk with our legal counsul about it (since the law covers mail originating in Australia, not just mail recieved there). Our anti-virus software may be violating this law...

Still, it's less draconian and less spam-industry-friendly than many ill-conceived laws I've seen.

I'd still rather that governments stay out of it, or just fund the open source development of reputation-based anti-spam mail server software, but I guess that's a lost battle and everyone is too spooked by spam to see the long-term anymore.

Re:major problem..

[BrokenHalo]

I can't say I've seen any spam from non-profit groups, but it strikes me that most probably realise that funds are hard enough to come by without pissing people off.

95% of the spam I've had over the last week has been from http://superrxsalesman.info (prescription drugs) domain registered in Seattle. I can't see our Australian government having any teeth to use against these guys.