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UK Anti-Spam Laws Criticised
stripyd writes "The Guardian has an article
about the ineffectiveness of British anti-spam regulations. Asside from the limited penalties,
the Office of the Information Commissioner have yet to actually hand out a fine. From personal
experience, the OIC aren't good at answering email on queries regarding the law, their web site, or suggestions that the current procedure of tracking down, printing out and mailing off (with a stamp!) a five-page pdf form to report miscreants be streamlined. The form itself is good for a few yuks, until you remember your taxes are paying for it to be outsourced to private sector hosting."
And when has the Blair government produced a form that is not crammed will complex and irrelevant questions, which then requires us to pay an army of civil servants to read.
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And this compares to the highly successful anti-spam laws of which country, exactly? (Disclaimer: I have a vested interest, I the anti-spam development manager at MessageLabs)
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Laws are useless unless they are enforced. There is no deterrent if would-be lawbreakers know they either won't get caught, or if caught, won't be significantly punished.
It's therefore relevant in planning anti-Spam legislation that the legislators consider how they can follow up on whatever laws they draft to make them more than a 'toothless tiger'.
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It's quite amusing that while on the one hand expecting ISPs to keep e-mail logs for several years for "security" purposes, another branch of the same government is ensuring that those logs are so full of spam-related noise that it would be infeasible to analyse them in most practical cases.
Of course, anti-spam legislation is only effective against "legitimate" slimeball businesses. And at present, their contribution is minimal compared to criminal slimeball businesses. The latter cannot only be addressed by technical fixes, after which point legal solutions may have a chance of working.
The sad thing is that however strong and well supported the laws are by the community, it's probably not going to make one bit of difference to the amount of crap an individual receives. For a start, UK laws can't stop foreign spammers. Secondly, they are likely to be difficult to enforce even if we know who the culprits are. We have drug laws and anti-terrorism laws in Britain, but does that mean that they are no longer a problem? I think not. IMHO the best way to avoid spam is to take precautions and get some good filters.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
That is, when some story comes up about spam and a govt. official is interviewed, they can point to the spam law being passed.
See also Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act.
Oh, come off it! This isn't a 'deterrent,' or a 'solution,' localised or otherwise. It's not even any use as a 'fig-leaf.' It's just an embarrasment. The UK Government looked at the problem, and waved its hands in the air, and decided to do nothing effective. Luckily, in the Office of the Information Commissioner, they had the perfect enforcer (ha!) ready to do their bidding.
But I guess I've been trolled once more in this discussion, I suppose it's time for me to really shut up now <g>
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Therein lies your first lesson in international law - how to implement a European Union directive in such a way as to follow the letter of the law but with no real intention to do anything serious about the problem the Directive is supposed to be addressing.
British politicians and lawmakers are just like politicans anywhere - totally cynical bastards with their own agendas.
We need a new, pithy name for these. Getting people to sign up to receive spam is one of the spammers' cleverest tricks. And it works too well, alas.