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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?"
Non-profit groups are exempt.
Sorry, but I don't like spammers that are trying to save my soul any more than spammers who want to sell me placebos to increase my sexual prowess.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Oh, and apparently EFA are there purely to support the "immoral" industries... go figure.
I will admit I only read the "Simplified Outline", but from what I saw there, my only grip with this bill is this:
"Address-harvesting software must not be supplied,
acquired or used."
I have no problem banning the USAGE of harvested lists. But banning the software?? hmmmm it reeks of censorship to me. Personally, I'd rather be free and spammed than to be sliding down slippery slopes that are completely spam-free.
But maybe that's why I hang out here instead of the local pub.
Stewey
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Lots of organisations are still digesting this bill, and are yet to issue a response. But groups may well come out swinging against:
It's a step in the right direction, but this bill is far from perfect.
I agree with this.
Firstly I believe this legislation is an EXCELLENT idea, HOWEVER, the attrocities including expensive websites and his blatant disregard for broadband in Australia are unforgivable.
I appreciate what he is doing here, but he's basically clueless with regards to technology.
One of his advisors (or his nephew etc. for all I know) need a pat on the back. He, on the otherhand, should be ousted before he does more damage.
My AU$0.02
Exception--conspicuous publication
(2)However, if:
(a)a particular electronic address enables the public, or a section of the public, to send electronic messages to:
(i) a particular employee; or
(ii) a particular director or officer of an organisation; or
(iii) a particular partner in a partnership; or
(iv) a particular holder of a statutory or other office; or
(v) a particular self-employed individual; or
(vi) an individual from time to time holding, occupying or performing the duties of, a particular office or position within the operations of an organisation; or
(vii) an individual, or a group of individuals, from time to time performing a particular function, or fulfilling a particular role, within the operations of an organisation; and
(b) the electronic address has been conspicuously published; and
(c) it would be reasonable to assume that the publication occurred with the agreement of:
(i) if subparagraph (a)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv) or (v) applies--the employee, director, officer, partner, office-holder or self-employed individual concerned; or
(ii) if subparagraph (a)(vi) or (vii) applies--the organisation concerned; and
(d) the publication is not accompanied by:
(i) a statement to the effect that the relevant electronic account-holder does not want to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages at that electronic address (emphasis mine); or
(ii) a statement to similar effect; the relevant electronic account-holder is taken, for the purposes of this Act, to have consented to the sending of commercial electronic messages to that address, so long as the messages are relevant to:
(e) if subparagraph (a)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv) or (v) applies--the work-related business, functions or duties of the employee, director, officer, partner, office-holder or self-employed individual concerned; or
(f) if subparagraph (a)(vi) applies--the office or position concerned; or
(g) if subparagraph (a)(vii) applies--the function or role concerned.
So, in other words, if I don't put a big notice on my e-commerce website saying "Don't even think about spamming these contact e-mails," I can expect to have to muck out the mailbox three times a day, as usual. Oh, wait; per the law, it will all be relevant to my business, and therefore legitimate.
Sorry, buddy. Spam is spam, no matter how it's sliced.
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
This doesn't actually change anything for the public except to ensure that absolutely all of the revenue generated by these sites is directed offshore... nice one...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
While 20.2 says the following, I don't think it helps:
The mere fact my search request contained a DNS name and an '@' character could be construed as grounds to suspect that I might use the results for spamming.
If you meant proxying, not any more. This was fixed in the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act, aka the "Australian DMCA". In the US, this was also fixed in the DMCA. No, the DMCA isn't all bad...
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
It's worth noting that a lot of the "world's greatest luddite" stuff that's flinged at Richard Alston is just BS made up by his political opponents.
For example, he's not against broadband, he just spoke out against a bad plan for broadband rollout that the opposition came up with, and rightly so.
Don't believe everything you read by or about politicians.
I think the IT industry needs to recognise that standards like SMTP need overhauling. They were never designed with the insight required to recognise potential mis-uses. The world should not go the way of the USA in attempting to fix all problems by turning society into one bit letigious mass.
Here is a copy of a letter which i sent to the Australian Government in relation to this matter which was published in the the Australia IT.
This email is intended for Minister Richard Alston, but is applicable to any persons within the Australian government who are responsible for administering, overseeing, and maintaining Australia's Information Economy.
Whilst I applaud the Australian Government's strong stance on SPAM email and its recent decision to fast track legislation to prevent it, I am gravely concerned by the nature of this legislation with regard to its stance on list-generating software.
At face value it may seem as though it is a good idea to prevent people from mining email addresses from the Internet, however upon closer inspection I hope that you will come to see it as I do, shortsighted, dangerous, and detrimental to the Information Economy.
My concerns arise from a fundamental view of what the Internet is and what it represents. Without a doubt the Internet has become much more than its designers ever envisaged, the current day invocation of Internet is as a medium for the publishing and sharing of information and, perhaps more importantly, it is also a medium for free speech and dissemination of data.
By moving to restrict the ability to harvest this information, the Australian Government will be unwittingly placing restrictions not on what is published, but rather how it is allowed to be received and distributed. This course of action may have far reaching implications and consequences for the Information Economy which the Australian Government is poorly equipped to understand.
From a technical perspective the Internet is still in its infancy, its current invocation will not last for ever, and so legislation which effects the flow of information needs to be carefully considered for the implications it may have on the future evolution of the Internet and therefore the Information Economy.
The Internet is an architecture built on flexible and generic standards, for instance an email address is actually a subset of a much wider standard for representing information called a Universal Resource Locator (URL)* which in itself is derived from a wider and even more generic standard called a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).
* Please refer to http://www.w3.org/Addressing/ for more technical details on the URI and URL.
By attempting to legislate against software which extracts email addresses from web pages or other content on the Internet, the Australian government is potentially legislating against software which harvests any kind of information based the URI/URL standards. Much of the software which performs such data mining activities is used for generating indexes of the Internet for use in search engines.
Search engine technology, and therefore data mining, is the most critical and heavily used application on the Internet today. Whether it be individual users, small business, corporate entities, or governments, they are all heavily dependent on search engine technology. Without such technology and the freedom to produce new innovative software utilising Internet standards, the Information Economy would surely be doomed.
What the Australian Government may not be aware of, and what the legislation probably overlooks is the fact that software designed to support the URI/URL standards will often not distinguish between and Email address (i.e. mailto:oof@foo.org) and a conventional HTTP address (i.e. http://foo.org).
The Australian Government cannot pass legislation which will effectively stifle existing search engine technology and future innovation in that area. Data mining based on existing Internet stand
Spam I get by the bucketload, even with spamassasin running.
A lot of the spam comes (apparently) from the US, which is sourly amusing when it's for something where the transportation costs would dwarf the value of what's offered. That is an indication of why spam is such a problem. Telephone and dead tree marketing are self-limiting and necessarily local, since the marketer cops some expenses. I can be spammed by any twit in the world at minimal cost. It does give me a sense of the true horror of what saturation telemarketing must be like, though. And why a do-not-call list would be a good idea where phone marketing is a major annoyance.
Personally, spam is a bigger problem than any other form of direct marketing. Generalising wildly to the rest of Australia, this would seem to be the sense of the bill.
The bill itself covers any electronc message to any electronic address, including telephone numbers, with specific exclusions. It also prohibits the harvesting of addresses. It's pretty clearly aimed straight at low-cost, high-volume automated annoyances. If other forms of direct marketing approach the same level of annoyance, they can be dealt with seperately.