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Canadian Privacy Law v. E-Mail Harvesting
sbowles writes "Canada's Privacy Commisioner has ruled that a business e-mail address is personal information protected under the federal privacy legislation (PIPEDA). Law professor Michael Geist (a leading e-commerce and privacy law expert) received an unsolicited request to buy seasons tickets from the local football team. His e-mail address had been harvested from a University website. The ruling indicated that 'You are allowed to collect and use publicly available information, but the use has to be directly related to the purpose for which the information appears in a directory or notice.'"
My wife does consulting and sometimes she contacts sites (partner@somesite.com) to explore possible partnerships. Well, it has happened now twice that she was reported as a spammer. The first time, our ISP (city-run cable company) immediately disconnected us with no explanation. When I finally contacted them, they were unapologetic and threatening at first. Needless to say, we switched ISPs.
The bottom line is, I hate spam, too, but sometimes people are far too trigger happy to report legitimate business inquiries as spam.
Hungarian regulation is similar to the one in Canada. E-mail address is personal information if You can bind the information to a specific person (e.g. info@something might not be a personal information, but rocco.s@private is a personal information)
In Hungary, You are not allowed to deal with personal data (store, collect, sell, use, anything) except with the prior permission of the owner.
If somebody violates the law, you can push it to the Ombudsman ("Parliamentary Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information"), who has right to do much, like personally check the workflow of the violator, but generally he just sends a letter to the violator to stop storing my email address. He generally does not say to stop collecting ANY email address and to destroy all the database collected.
The other problem is with law enforcment. Beside the Ombudsman you can go to the court to enforce the law and stop the violator. You won't reach to much, the court will say: you are not allowed to that, please stop it, it won't set a fine or something. The only thing you can reach is that the violator will pay the bill (price) of the court, e.g $300. But if it happens once, tha violator can fear the people of setting thousands of cases at the court and thus getting thousand times the cost of $300... In Hungary a typical court case takes 2-3 years (!)...
The only problem with all that stuff, that it DOES NOT WORK.
There was not a single case of spamming / e-mail address harvesting at the hungarian courts, and the legislation was introduced for about 3 year!
Not a single lawyer got enought courage to do something (pro-bono) for such a important goal as privacy...
So, good luck in other countries.
Found this amusing rant on the nature of Canada recently.
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http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/02/oh-oh-canada
This is what defines Canada's virtue to me. Canada does not convert. Canada heals. Canada leads. First among the nations, creating the Peacekeepers. Pushing the Land Mine ban. Still not perfect, but doing their best at reconciling issues with the aboriginal peoples even as other nations such as Australia choke on their responsibility. Allowing Quebec its poetic, myopic thrashings. I'm always a little dismayed at native Canadians who whinny about Canada's missing identity. I, as an adopted son, know damn well what Canada is. "Come, have a pint, I don't mind your odd accent -- mine's a bit dodgy too. Your business is your business, we can all be friends as long as you buy the next round."
The nasty bots are still quite capable of understanding NO and SPAM, so it's more effective to have some other armoring, like my old favorite: "blahdeblah@dirty.balls.org, castrate to email (remove the .balls)"
-mkb
I just happen to be researching and writing something on PIPEDA...it sounds like this principle (3rd of 10) was violated:
Obtain Consent - Every organization is responsible for getting consent from the person whose information will be collected, used and/or disclosed. Consent is defined as voluntary agreement with what is being done and may be implied or expressed. In addition, the individual must be told the details of why, how and when the information is being collected, used or disclosed.
One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
Unfortunatly, the US seems to be stuck on this idea that you have no privacy in a public place. This is a wonderful idea if your intention is to live in a surveillance society, bad if you hope to live in a free one.
:)
I'm intrigued and confused. There are two freedoms: the freedom from being pestered by someone selling something, and the freedom to sell something. Which takes precedence?
The bit about a surveillance society loses me...how would such a society alleviate the spam problem? (Incidentally, I for one do not want to live in a surveillance society