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E.U. Employers To Be Held Liable For Porn Spam?

Posted by timothy on from the hostile-environment-defined dept.

Cowards Anonymous writes "Yahoo News has a story about a study of Europe's new anti-spam legislation. The overly broad wording of the legislation, according to the study, could allow employees to sue employers for not doing enough to stop porn spam. Businesses could be sued by their workers for allowing a hostile work environment. The author of the study advises companies running email servers to use filtering technology, and warn employees about the sometimes sleazy content of spam."

2 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. Spam can be compared to other societal ills. by commo1 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    We have a problem here. How do we stop the spammers from distributing unwanted spam? We can't. If they're running their operations from outside industrialized and regulated countries, there is virutually no legal recourse. My favorite solution is to have all websites pertaining to porn be labelled with an .XXX suffix. Problem? Unenforcable.

    Now, the same problem exists with panhandlers. They are a societal ill that hinders commerce, encourages substance and welfare abuse, yet bylaws and law enforcement are impotent against the panhandlers themselves.

    So: As my suggestion to local city council goes: if you can't fine the panhandlers (what are you going to do, take their "panhandled" money away?), fine the people patronizing the panhandlers!

    Some big issues here that have to be worked out... liberty of speech comes to mind, but somehow make it illegal or a fineable offense to support unsolicited spam or pornography by way of spam. If the market dries up, so do the merchants. If the demand drops, so does the supply.

  2. Re:SMTP must die! by Alyred · · Score: 0, Redundant
    Unfortunately, it would probably only cause the US Postal Service to raise the postal rates again because of the massive amount of mail they'd have to return to the sender.

    Their services cost them money as well, which is what you are paying for when you use a stamp.

    As the original poster stated, the problem with spam is that all the costs are on the receiving end, and the route in between. There is virtually NO cost (per mail) to the spammer.