Spam senders may face hefty fines!

Good news may be on the way for those long suffering Internet users who are forced to sift through a mountain of often offensive junk mail that litters their “in-boxes” on a daily basis. New laws were introduced to parliament last week in a step toward outlawing about half of the 5 billion e-mails sent each and every day that are considered “junk” or “spam”.

Offenders found guilty could be hit with hefty fines, repeat offenders could be slugged with penalties in excess of $1 million dollars.

Internet users also have the pleasure of paying for the indignity of downloading this menace that has now reached plague proportion. The problem of spam is estimated to cost businesses around $900 per worker each year alone. Consequently some are questioning the suggestion within the legislation that some “non-commercial organisations” such as political, religious and charitable groups might be exempt from these laws.

Remind us, again, how spam works.

For those who are not familiar with the highly questionable practice of spamming, this practice usually consists of some “get rich quick vulture” sending unsolicited, unwanted and often offensive “junk” email to a person whose email address has usually been obtained or “harvested” through equally questionable and dubious methods.

These emails, which are often considered analogous to the “junk mail” we find in our traditional letter mail boxes are most commonly used to promote illegal, offensive and unscrupulous ventures such as celebrity porn, fake prizes, money laundering and black market drugs.

Is spam really all that serious?

Spam has become an absolute menace to both individuals and business alike; it is no longer simply a nuisance. Sentiments echoed by Communications Minister Richard Alston, who like many Internet users, feel that if we don’t do something about it soon, it is going to overwhelm the way in which the Internet and information technology operates.

So who is going to stand guard and identify abuse of the Internet?

The Australian Communications Authority is to become the nation's spam watchdog. It will be given the powers to deal with offenders by issuing formal warnings and court injunctions - infringement notices or fines, and seek court-imposed penalties where needed. Basically the proposed penalties for spam offenders are:

• Up to $44,000 per day for a first offence by an individual.
• Up to $220,000 per day for a first offence by an organisation.
• Up to $220,000 per day for those individual repeat offenders.
• Up to $1.1 million per day for an organisational that is a repeat offender.

The government is hoping spot fines and penalties will serve as a deterrent to spammers. A 120-day grace period is expected for businesses to comply with new laws before fines will begin.

For all those long suffering receivers of spam, when is this legislation expected to occur?

Thus far the legislation is non-controversial so is expected to have a smooth transition through the Senate. Labor has stated that the opposition would consider the new laws but so far had a very favourable attitude towards them.

Whilst broadly supportive of the thrust of the bill, the only dissent so far has come from the Australian Democrats IT representative Brian Greig, who said the party would seek to amend the laws exempting charities and political parties from the spam laws. It seems the Democrats see no good reason to exempt charity groups from spamming but don't understand why they've been excluded.

So is this the end of spam for Australian Internet users?

Well, it is certainly a step in the right direction unfortunately it is doubtful if the new laws which were introduced to parliament last week are likely to have much of an impact on the bulk mail outs of unsolicited commercial emails - better known as spam –many of which originate overseas in nondescript countries with little chance of legal transfer.

Unfortunately spam blockers and other filtering technology will still have to be used to repel overseas-generated junk email.

What about those businesses simply trying to get their product message out to potential customers – could they find themselves at odds with the law?

Commercial organisations will still be able to send email messages so long as they have the consent of the email receiver, and providing that the message clearly identifies the details of the sender and the facility to “unsubscribe” from the mailing list so that no future mail will be received from this source.

Arthur Hissey
Computer Research & Technology
www.crt.net.au