While initially the general feeling was optimistic, there is more and more concern being expressed that the very nature of the internet (decentralised, global and largely without standards) will essentially render Anti-Spam legislature ineffective. Currently, countries such as the US ( CAN-SPAM Act), the UK (having adopted the EU legislation) and Australia (Spam Act 2003) are adopting anti-Spam legislature of some description and of varying effectiveness. Attention is now shifting to alternative approaches to combatting unsolicited email.
While initially the general feeling was optimistic, there is more and more concern being expressed that the very nature of the internet (decentralised, global and largely without standards) will essentially render Anti-Spam legislature ineffective. Currently, countries such as the US ( CAN-SPAM Act), the UK (having adopted the EU legislation) and Australia (Spam Act 2003) are adopting anti-Spam legislature of some description and of varying effectiveness. Attention is now shifting to alternative approaches to combatting unsolicited email.
Australia’s Anti-Spam legislation is due to come into effect on the 11th of April and many recent articles have pointed out its faults and limitations. In a recent article on ZdNet, Anthony Wong describes the crux of this law as “a general prohibition on the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages that have an Australian link- subject to a few exemptions�. The article rightly points out the difficulties in controlling Spam on a national level when the majority of unsolicited email originates overseas. A similar article appeared in the Age
In a Sydney Morning Herald article a self-described “Spam Expert� (in the form of Bruce McCabe, a S2 Intelligence analyst) dismisses the Australian legislation as raising costs of business while failing to address the overall structure of the Internet in which Spam prospers. Also, McCabe points out that this approach fails to differentiate between Category 1 spam (which does not include any sender information) and other types of unsolicitated email.
A column by Ivan Trundle in InCite magazine, the magazine of the Australian Library and Information Association, argues that both the Australian and US legislation actually legitimises spam rather than eradicating it.
Yet another article, in pcmac.com identifies ways in which the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) legislation might actually be contributed to the increases in unsolicited email. The article also explores the potential to overcome such limitations by creating global solutions to Spam eradication.
The UK legislation (which is a version of the Bill created by the EU and now in effect in other European countries), has faced much criticims from anti-spam organisations such as The Spamhaus Project for, among other things, failing to protect British business from spam.
So, while the premise of the majority of criticisms of anti-spam laws is that a global problem requires a global solution, the actual logistics of this are rarely addressed. As a result of this recent legislation, attention to any alternatives to the limitations of national-level law-making and Microsoft’s more individualist solution has definitely increased and the responses of global bodies such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) will be greatly anticipated.
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