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Australian Spam Bill Not So Good After All?
crazney writes "Electronic Frontiers Australia has criticized the anti-spam bill proposed by the Australian government. You can read their full analysis here"
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the bill had the Chinese shaking in their boots.
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* Stop the Telstra Bulldozer in it's tracks -- support broadband. Canada proves it's possible in a big country * Sensible censorship * Sensible copyright * Serious commitment to anti-spam * Keep investing and committing to open source Alston's policies have left Australia as an international IT joke. So much local telent, and so many opportunities in the Asian and global markets have gone to waste. More importantly, every Australian business and consumer has suffered from the 1950s attitudes of the present Aussie govt. Step into the 80s guys, the economy is not all agriculture and textiles!
The linux hacker
Recently it has seemed that if anything was said to be anti-spam it was deemed to be good - no further scrutiny was required.
These laws were a case in point, but any comments here or elsewhere that questioned the new laws were howled down in the shared "spam-is-evil" sentiment. Spam is a pain and is hard to defend - but defeating spam should be a case of the right tool for the job. The right tool is rarely legislation - yet it is the first we seem to reach for.
I'm glad that there is some well thought out legitimate questioning of these knee-jerk reaction laws.
It's not just about australia its about your rights online. Since spam infringes on everyones privacy and its not just restricted to Australia this is relevant news for everyone. Furthermore, this spam bill, good or bad can be adopted/improved on by other nations wanting to fight spam.
Spam laws are kind of like the US gun control laws. They're all fine and dandy, but until the existing laws are enforced, they really mean nothing. And the greater restrictions probably just annoy law-abiding citizens.
(Now, I'm all in favor of gun control. Just not more legislation until the ATF actually does something.)
This is another one of those laws that may have been made with good intentions in mind, but will either not work or actually unintentionally harm those who aren't the real culprits. The problem with this law, much like the DMCA, is that the computer world is changing rapidly, and it is often hard to draw lines as to what is or isn't spamming. Instead you end up with huge loopholes for the real spammers and lots of red tape and problems for those who aren't. Laws regarding online crime or problems need to be updated at least a few times a year, if not monthly. However, the speed at which governments are willing to change laws is far too slow to do this.
While it seems that the US government, for example, has and is actually doing the right thing with the national do-not-call list, perhaps that is the exception.
We are asking our governments to step up to do the right thing and protect us from this nonsense, but what they seem unable to restrain themselves from doing is to get their hands on all of it and regulate it.
We aren't asking for a whole system of regulation, we are just asking for protection.
The problem though, is that there are a lot of other parties who see this whole mess from other (possibly commercial) perspectives, and they want protection too, or whatever you would call doing services to their private interests and agendas.
For example, if we call in the government to help us, are they also going to decide that it is ok for political and non-profit groups to spam each of my email addresses X number of times per year or per month? Is government going to decide that any business can spam me once a year or until I renew my request with them to not be spammed?
Is the Bush re-election campaign going to be able to spam me once a month asking for donations?
Should we be worried that regulation will bring some relief, but with it the legitimization of unsolicited email conforming to the new regulations as an acceptable component of an advertising model for mainstream products and services, especially with telemarketing being clamped down on perhaps more now than in the past?
While I do believe that it is appropriate for us to act through our government to regulate this mess for the benefit of the majority (there is no right or legitimate expectation of private persons to force a communication with another person against his or her will), and ideally they would, I do not have faith in our elected representatives to do the right thing.
I think that is very sad. It seems that realistically our best hope for just and progressive government right now is to elect those who will screw us over least badly with the representative power we give them.
section {.rant}
I don't want to elect agendas or philosophers or idealists. I want to elect, surprisingly representatives, persons who I can in good faith entrust to act as an extension of my person - an extension of my own moral agency, an entity whose actions, good or bad, I am directly responsible for in so far as I am representated by a maximally auditable, responsive, and transparent manner, not used.
Just get it done, damnit.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
You can't simultaneously have laws against spam and support legally unfettered email, since the latter implies that spam is OK. It's just like free speech; you can't be for free speech "except" the free speech of groups you don't like.
You have to fight spam by going after what it mostly is: criminal fraud, and the only effective legislation against spam will be increasing the criminal penalties for mail/wire fraud that already exist, perhaps by including any financial participation (vendor/seller/spammer) in a spam operation as a RICO charge, coupled with vigorous federal investigation and prosecution.
But, the US federal government is more interested in pursuing a senseless pattern of law enforcement like "Operation Headhunter" and locking up guys like Tommy Chong for putting his name on a bong.
Plus, I think much of the Republican party is made up of self-styled "entrepeneurs" who think that lying, cheating and stealing are all just "aggressive sales techniques", so its unlikely we'll get much action out of them.
Until then, just expect the usual people who can't think three feet past their nose to expect that you can limit spam but still have free email.