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."

Comments

Compared to the successful anti-spam laws where?

[evilandi]

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)

Laws are useless without enforcement

[lewko]

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'.

Policy conflict...

[cardpuncher]

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.

What's the point?

[neilmoore67]

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.