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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."
I don't see anything about drawing and quartering spammers in that legislation!
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okThe real secret to this Luddite's success against spam is the provision in the bill banning spammers from possessing computers or electronic equipment of any kind. Apparently, he felt that carrier pidgeon would be the the best way to transport the spam of the future.
the bill can be linked to directly. If you want to get to it using the list liked to in the article then scroll down to number 124.
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...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
That Dingo stole my penis enlarger!
Yes, the anti-spam bill is a good step, but he's still a Luddite.
On Microsoft closing chat rooms:
Senator Alston said other firms would have social obligations and legal concerns prompting them to take similar action.
Article
He thinks MS did this for the public good.
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.
So.. does this mean that people running and/or responsible for open-relays aren't responsible for the traffic that goes through them?
"Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up?"
Am I the only one picturing an older man in an undershirt, suspenders and short pants as a centerfold? (Not to mention a dozen broken monitors behind him.)
I don't know about you, but this isn't my idea of a great pin-up.. but to each their own I guess.
It's interesting to note that selling address harvesting software will become illegal, and that selling email lists harvested by software will also become illegal. It will also be illegal to use the list even if you bought it overseas. The problem lies in proving that the list was obtained in this way.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
His latest statement is here, where he claims that after Microsoft's closure of its chatrooms, more scrutiny will be placed on those of other ISPs
Microsoft's chat service closure was less to do with protecting children than it was a chance to start strangling their IM competition. The child protection thing was just pulling the wool over the public's eyes.
Alston would like nothing more than to have every unmoderated chat service shut down.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
As another has pointed out, there are a number of exemptions:
Eg. Schedule 1, Object, Note 2:
Designated commercial electronic messages are exempt from section 16 (unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent) and section 18 (commercial electronic messages must contain a functional unsubscribe facility).
Those 'designated commercial electronic messages' include:
Government bodies, political parties, religious organisations and charities
(a) the sending of the message is authorised by any of the following bodies:
(i) a government body;
(ii) a registered political party;
(iii) a religious organisation;
(iv) a charity or charitable institution; and
(b) the message relates to goods or services; and
(c) the body is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned.
Educational institutions
(a) the sending of the message is authorised by an educational institution; and
(b) either or both of the following subparagraphs applies:
(i) the relevant electronic accountholder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution;
(ii) a member or former member of the household of the relevant electronic accountholder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution; and
(c) the message relates to goods or services; and
(d) the institution is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned
Factual information
(a) the message consists of no more than factual information (with or without directlyrelated comment) and any or all of the following additional information:
(i) the name, logo and contact details of the individual or organisation who authorised the sending of the message;
(ii) the name and contact details of the author;
(iii) if the author is an employee--the name, logo and contact details of the author's employer;
(iv) if the author is a partner in a partnership--the name, logo and contact details of the partnership;
(v) if the author is a director or officer of an organisation--the name, logo and contact details of the organisation;
(vi) if the message is sponsored--the name, logo and contact details of the sponsor;
(vii) information required to be included by section 17;
(viii) information that would have been required to be included by section 18 if that section had applied to the message; and
(b) assuming that none of that additional information had been included in the message, the message would not have been a commercial electronic message; and
(c) the message complies with such other condition or conditions (if any) as are specified in the regulations.
After all that, I don't really see how it will help one bit. To my interpretation (wrong though it may be) we can still get spam but we have to know who it is coming from, and if it is from a business (for profit) it may not be more than a business card. On the other hand, from a govt body, political party, religious crazies (or otherwise), and charities, you den't even need to be able to unsubscribe. It must relate to goods or services (uh huh... big protection there. The catalogues in my mailbox do that too) and they must be the prospective supplier. That's what they are hoping, anyway.
Also, a uni, or school, may cheerfully spam all their students. What fun.
All seems to be a waste of time to me.
As for Alston... if anyone sees him, punch him in the face for me, or somesuch.
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.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
Actually, as he is a senior Minister in the Australian government, he would have had the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts write the bill. And after they did the initial drafting, it would have gone to the Attorney General's Dept for conversion into legalese, i.e. to keep the language tight and to make sure it only allows/disallows the things that it is intended to.
Regardless, Alston would still have had the final say and would have checked off on every aspect of the bill before it went to Parliament.
It's not like America here - there aren't a great number of aides (political staff) and they don't generally write bills - most of that kind of work is done by public servants.
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!
This is my sig.
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.
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.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
A man that thinks broadband is just for games, introduced unworkable Internet censorship and thinks Telstra is doing a good enough job to become 100 percent public is still a Luddite.
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.
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.
Speak before you think
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.
It's hard to imagine that he personally understands the issues involved. It seems more likely that he's been given advice, and not gotten involved or objected because it's all gone way over his head.
It's when he makes off the cuff comments that his general cluelessness about IT is revealed - he didn't earn the title of "Biggest Luddite in the World" for nothing. Aside from the comments on closing chatrooms that several other posters have mentioned, he's also recently been taken to task over comments he made in the Senate about Electronic Frontiers Australia. There was a story in the Register only a few days ago. EFA were permitted to publish a reply in the parliamentary records, objecting to his description of them as "spokespeople of the porn industry".
You didn't understand the clause.
In simple English
If the message comes from one of the listed orgs (party, etc) AND concerns goods or services FROM the listed org, then its okay.
Still, if your church is producing penile extenders, then its exempt.
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
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.
c h8_02.htm1 =Press+Releases§ion=5i dalegal.com/lit_ec.nsf/0/96159EA0F81 DA9E885256A8700650763?OpenDocumentp ://www.ago.state.mo.us/071201.htm
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/mar
Massachusetts http://www.ago.state.ma.us/press_rel/ics.asp?head
Florida
http://myflor
Missouri
htt
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
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.
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.