UK And EU May Make Unsolicited Email Illegal 382
An anonymous reader writes "According to this BBC article the UK and the EU are planning to making unsolicited email simply illegal. This doesn't do anything for prevention practically, but it does legally pave the way for measures that do. Lord Sainsbury of Turville admits it will do nothing to stop spam from outside the EU."
UK and the EU? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:4, Insightful)
Mmmmm, objectivity...
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:5, Insightful)
Speak for yourself.
The EU is banning all gameshows which give out over 70,000, i.e Who wants to be a Millionnaire is going to have to change or be banned, THATS HOW stooopid the Europeans are.
As a Brit who regularly travels and does business in other European countries, I find it really sad how a lot of Brits do not have an objective idea about Europe and the EU because they do not access to unbiased information about it. There is a concerted effort by a significant part of the UK press to rubbish the EU, and people such as yourself are easily influenced by them. Stories like the one you quote (and on the front page of The Times two days ago "EU would scap NHS if UK joins the Euro") only appear in the UK. And do you know why? Because they are just rubbish, made up, to influence people like yourself. Sad but true.
Britain is Britain, the political alliance of England, Scotland and Wales, we are our own union, we don't want European trash, and we're not in Europe...
It is funny very anti-European people such as yourself like to make this type of comment with regards to Europe, but seem completely blind to the fact that the UK has given away much of it's independance to the USA over the last half a century or so. The sad fact is that the USA has the UK in an economic vice. You should be more concerned that your Prime Minister has to be a poodle for the USA than any supposed threat to your soverignty from Europe.
Don't forget the straight cucumbers! (Score:2)
Or was it bananas, totally irrelevant anyway since it turned out to be another fabrication by the media.
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2)
And you're so stupid that you can't even read a Mirror story [mirror.co.uk] properly. There's a difference between a proposal and a decision, and the cited reason for the proposal is the wish to protect state lottery income from competition by other lotteries, which is self-interested rather than stupid.
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:5, Informative)
The EU does not actually have the power to make laws, it merely issues directives that force it's member countries to make laws with a specific effect within a certain timescale if they want to stay EU members.
In this case the UK (and all the rest of the EU member states) will be obliged to pass anti-spam laws. The actual wording of the laws will not necessarily be the same in each country ( we don't all use the same language for a start), nor will the penalties and definitions, but the broad thrust of the directive will be implemented.
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2, Informative)
http://europa.eu.int/abc/governments/index_en.h
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:3, Funny)
Just give it up Eivind.. I wasted an hour a while back trying to explain a 'mericin that Scandinavia is a part of Europe. By the logic he showed, Florida isn't part of North Amrica either... after all, it's a peninsula like the one we live on.
Most people from the US is quite nice and all that.. but they show a disturbing lack of knowledge of the rest of the world.
Re:Driving in the EU (Score:2)
Re:Driving in the EU (Score:3, Funny)
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:4, Insightful)
The current organisation of the EU may be seriously flawed, but that doesn't make the concept bad.
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2)
You are avoiding the issue: something which was different in the UK was changed because it was different. The Euro is the same principle writ large.
Is Scotland any less Scottish because it is part of the UK?
I don't know; how is your Gaelic?
Feel free to oppose the EU on anti-capitalist grounds, but complaining about loss of culture is just bogus.
I'm flexible: I can object on both grounds. It is capitalism to which cultur
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2)
He then became Vice President of the European Commission until earlier this year. What the slimy little toad is doing now I'm not sure but it is bound to be: a) Paid for by taxpayers, and b) unaccountable and powerful, his favourate combination.
Plus, I'm pretty sure it's "Brittan".
TWW
Re:UK and the EU? (Score:2)
What a sucess for Mr Murdoch and zenephobic Sun readers everywhere!
wasn't it about opt out? (Score:5, Interesting)
In any case, show us the directive...
Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:2)
the other day i received spam that advertised a 16.5 million email address list of OPT-IN email addresses.. funny thing was that it also stated that i had opted in to receive that spam, which i had not.
Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:2)
Merely an extension of existing UK law. The Data Protection Act prevents the exchange of information between companies without your consent. When they get a hold of your e-mail address, they are in violation unless they themselves mined it.
Also, when you sign up to any contract, by law they must have a "don't send me junk" box that you can tick. Sounds as though the new measures are pretty much the same, but for the digital realm.
The only difference is that it is currently
Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:5, Informative)
The full English version of the directive is here [eu.int] as a PDF file.
Since it's a lengthy piece of legal text that isn't all that fun to follow, the most important part is here:
Uk and EU? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Uk and EU? (Score:2)
New and Old Europe (Score:2)
The poster is probably equally well informed.
Re:New and Old Europe (Score:2)
Since Rumsfeld keeps yapping on about how the centre of Europe has moved further to the eastern parts of Europe, how come the U.S. hasn't done the same and declared Denver as the nation's capital, seeing as how Denver is pretty much smack in the middle of the U.S. landmass?
Re:Uk and EU? (Score:2)
Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:5, Funny)
I would hate not to get any email that wasn't a direct response to something I sent. What would I do for 2hours every morning when I got in?
Re:Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:2)
A Pedant Writes (Score:4, Funny)
Ah you meant Whales.
Re:Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:3)
I'm not concerned about one-off commercial emails. If someone's actually read a posting or my webpage and knows I'm looking for something they sell, then I guess it's not strictly 'unsolicited' anyway.
OTOH I would be mighty annoyed if I started getting bulk mail from (non-profit/non-commercial) political or religious groups.
Forget the BULK (Score:2)
I get a few commerical spams daily, each apparently coming from some nonexistant person on our network or on Yahoo and having been addresses to me alone. It is likely that the sender is forging email headers, making 'bulk' solicitations seem 'personal'.
How does this proposal address such a situation? (Nope, didn't read the article yet!)
Re:Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:2)
True, but in the US, the difficulty is that religious and political speech has the highest protection, thus are impossible to regulate in any way. Love it or hate it, that's at the heart of the American political system.
Commercial speech, however, can be regulated; witness the ban on tobacco and certain types of alcohol ads on TV.
Re:Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:2)
If it doesn't contain "direct marketing" it's not affected by this new rule. If it does, in the latter case there is a prior business relationship, and in the former case universities can put something in their matriculation agreement, that every student signs, to allow it.
Re:Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:2)
Even worse, it would be illegal for you to send an initial email requesting their response.
Egg, meet chicken. Chicken, this is egg.
And to let them know... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:And to let them know... (Score:2)
Uncolicited Email (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder where they'll draw the line of `unsolicited email'. Which mails fall under this category ? For mails like `RRApply for a online mortgage loan 247', it is clear, but if I send a mail to somebody, and this person doesn't like me, can he accuse me for sending unsolicited email ?
Re:Uncolicited Email (Score:4, Insightful)
Most spam comes from US and Asia (Score:5, Insightful)
This would indicate that most is from the US, so obviously this new law means F**k all, although I guess we could go for extradition or arrest them if they come to Europe on holiday
It will work. (Score:5, Informative)
If the EU makes SPAM illegal, then spammers cannot SPAM from the EU.
US is also trying to stop SPAM.
Lets say these countries are the only ones to do something. It will still work!
Currently I put everything from china into my SPAM-folder and by golly, I'll just blacklist every country that doesn't have anti-SPAM laws.
Problem (almost) solved
The really nice side-effect: (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting thing is this: let's say that the U.S. and EU do both ban spam, and all the spam is coming from outside the U.S. and EU. A *lot* of people will react the same way you do.
That is to say, we'll suddenly see a lot more careless e-mail blocks being placed on large swaths of entire countries, some by individuals, and most likely often by ISPs. We already see a LOT of huge e-mail blocks being done by ISPs, especially AOL, without much concern for collateral damage; it isn't inconcievable that a number of random ISPs might just look at their statistics and shortsightedly go, hmm, 90% of our spam comes from (for example) Indonesia, who is going to be talking to people in Indonesia anyway, i'll just block the whole country (or maybe just most of their IP space).
Once this starts happening, internet users and businesses in (for example) Indonesia are suddenly going to start discovering that they are having trouble communicating with the U.S., and this is because of spammers in their country. I find it likely that if this happens, their response will be to complain to their government to do something about the spammers that are making the americans block them... until one day, spam is illegal in indonesia as well, and shortsighted ISPs in indonesia are going, hey, all my spam's coming from Myanmar, why don't i just block e-mail from there..
So if the US or EU ever adopted real antispam laws, it could start a big domino effect that would cause a lot of other countries to adopt antispam laws as well.
Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:5, Informative)
Which reminds me; could you all kindly remind your ISP's that APNIC's address space is not JUST China, Korea and the Phillipines. It includes some friendly, non-spammy countries too (NZ and Australia).
Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:2)
I'm not sure that Australia and New Zealand have much political leverage over China. I don't think it really achieves anything to block them too - just pointless collateral damage.
Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:2)
It could happen, but you cannot be sure. I hope you will be proven right.
Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:3, Insightful)
If this goes through, the rest of the world will have to follow or there will be trouble. Still, they won't and there will be. Oh, well...
Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:2)
In which case possibly the US and EU could heal their diplomatic differences by declaring a "war on spam".
Re:It will work. (Score:5, Interesting)
I could be wrong though.
Here's a Danish spammer that got punished (Score:2, Informative)
Ahgh! I suck, here it is, properly formatted (Score:2, Informative)
Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [ Source [www.jp.dk]]
=============
Headline: Expensive to spam
Text:
In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristrictions.
Re:It will work. (Score:2, Informative)
However, I'm still getting about one per day from Far East and about ten - from US
"from the as-well-they-ought dept." !! (Score:3, Interesting)
"Unsolicited email" could include personal and noncommercial messages.
Perhaps "Unsolicited Commercial Email", or even "Unsolicited Mass Email" should be addressed.
It'd be nice if the text of the proposed legislation were linked to somewhere. (This is your invitation, Gentle Reader, to post any such links of which you may have knowledge...
Re:"from the as-well-they-ought dept." !! (Score:2)
This addresses both Commercial and Mass mailing. It covers not only email, but also fax and telephone..
Re:"from the as-well-they-ought dept." !! (Score:2)
Under the directive unsolicited e-mails may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and "with their prior consent" or where there is an existing customer relationship.
(1) Unsolicited e-mails (2) may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and (3) "with their prior consent" or (4) where there is an existing customer relationship.
So, by their phrasing of it, sending an email to a long-lost schoolmate, for example, would be (1) an unsolicited
Re:"from the as-well-they-ought dept." !! (Score:2)
Unsolicited e-mails that are sent for direct marketing purposes may only be sent to individuals with their prior consent or when there is an existing customer relationship.
That means that 'for direct marketing purposes' is not a condition. It is a descriptive sentence, it describes what will be sent. Your interpretation is correct, but the BBC writer messed up when he summarised the directive.
Heheheh (Score:5, Funny)
2. Receive lots of spam
3. ???
4. Profit!
How long before someone gets their ass sued off as a result of this.
Gah i hate spam
But (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes i know spam but what is their definition, i dont want to get sued for sending someone an email they didnt ask for
Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Sent in bulk to people who did not specifically ask to be contacted via email.
2) Is selling some form of product or service.
ultimately... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:ultimately... (Score:2)
Re:ultimately... (Score:2)
Why do you think that the problem has not been addressed for so long?
If you ask me the government has been waiting for the problem to reach critical mass. If two years ago someone had suggested that people pay to send email they would have been laughed
This is poorly thought out. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:5, Informative)
(40) Safeguards should be provided for subscribers against intrusion of their privacy by unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes in particular by means of automated calling machines, telefaxes, and e-mails, including SMS messages. These forms of unsolicited commercial communications may on the one hand be relatively easy and cheap to send and on the other may impose a burden and/or cost on the recipient. Moreover, in some cases their volume may also cause difficulties for electronic communications networks and terminal equipment. For such forms of unsolicited communications for direct marketing, it is justified to require that prior explicit consent of the recipients is obtained before such communications are addressed to them.
> excuse for the idea that Bill has entered into a business relationship with it, and then sends Bill spam forever without a clear sign of how to remove himself from their lists?
(41) Within the context of an existing customer relationship, it is reasonable to allow the use of electronic contact details for the offering of similar products or services, but only by the same company that has obtained the electronic contact details in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC. When electronic contact details are obtained, the customer should be informed about their further use for direct marketing in a clear and distinct manner, and be given the opportunity to refuse such usage. This opportunity should continue to be offered with each subsequent direct marketing message
Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:2, Informative)
It talks about direct mailing. Anyway, a EU Directive is not law; it is just a set of guidelines for member states to make their own laws. For reading the directives, some browsing from http://europa.eu.int will be enough :-)
Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:2, Interesting)
The internet and email were originally designed to let anyone send a message to anyone - no ifs, ands or buts.
Now commercial interests have caused the legal machinery to cut away at this design.
They sell the laws as helping *you*, but it is really to reduce the burden of spam on large corporate and government networks.
In other words, corporations - through their appointed representat
Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:2)
The two are not at all comparable. Free speech is not absolute. Arguing for freedom to spam is like arguing for the freedom to accost people in the street and shout disgusting pornographic advertising slogans in their faces. With a megaphone.
Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:3, Informative)
You are right; they have to specify the type of mail. And "commercial" alone won't do it. Think of your unsolicited phone calls. In addition to salesmen, you have surveys and other junk.
Due to postings on usenet for a couple of years in the mid-90's, my school email address is registered in a million databases as open to receiving religious mail. Every week I get somebody else deciding to add me to their daily devotional list. That's not commercial, but it's just as unwelcome.
EU has already made UCE illegal (Score:5, Informative)
EU has already made unsolicited commercial email (UCE) illegal, see article 13 of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications (2002/58/EC [eu.int]), after intense lobbying e.g. by EuroCAUCE [cauce.org].
The directive must be implemented by the member states by 31 October 2003.
(I just wrote statement [effi.org] [in Finnish] to the Finnish ministry of transports and communications [mintc.fi] on behalf of Electronic Frontier Finland [effi.org] of our proposed local implementation of the directive (which at the current form would allow ask-permission-spam (i.e. you would be allowed to send spam to ask permission to send more spam. :( )))
Re:EU has already made UCE illegal (Score:2)
Isn't this necessary to support double-opt in?
Re:EU has already made UCE illegal (Score:2)
It is as long as you are subscribing for commercial mailings/newsletter/so on, but mass mailing huge amounts of "reply to subscribe" mails should IMHO still be illegal.
Re:EU has already made UCE illegal (Score:2)
No, it's overbroad. For "double-opt-in", as you call it (also known as "confirmation-based subscription") the user, or someone pretending to be them, has already consented to the subscription. You are just confirming that it was really them.
This rule would allow "one-time" spamming with adverts "disguised" as subscription requests. (I'm sure spammers would find creative ways to get around even the "one-time" restriction - but that's not the point - even one
SO Simple! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs? The internet is worldwide and it affects us all.
We don't need an ICANN. We don't need a single police force. We just need the countries to come together and recognize that EVERYONE is involved and EVERYONE should do their part.
Re:SO Simple! (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually more likely that they can't afford it, or political pressure has been brought by the haves against the have nots. You might recall some sabre-rattling between Pakistan and India a couple of years ago before the US started to play mediator.
"Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?"
Ah, you mean by refusing to talk to each other for several years
In other news (Score:2)
> eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?
In other news, the first plutonium pits since 13 years ago were just produced inside the USA.
(A plutonium pit is the core of a nuclear warhead.)
Physical spam in the UK (Score:5, Informative)
Both services take about three months to fully kick in following registration.
There's a loophole in the mailing one though, and a comment in another thread some time ago mentioned a way round it. Junk mail may still be delivered to 'The Occupier' by the Royal Mail. Someone a while ago mentioned there was a service to stop this too - haven't been able to find that one. Anybody know?
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Physical spam in the UK (Score:4, Informative)
Useful when you get fax calls on a new land line from a commercial fax bureau. More than a little annoying at 4am in the morning.
Don't retire your spamtraps yet... (Score:2)
Under the directive unsolicited e-mails may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and "with their prior consent" or where there is an existing customer relationship.
As I read this - and INAL - a company you have already bought something from can spam the living daylights out of you if it's "direct marketing" (however they define that). I'll guess I'll keep my spam-trap (email-adress used solely for giving away on the web while regristring, subscribing, shopping and so on) for a whil
Re:Don't retire your spamtraps yet... (Score:2)
Re:Don't retire your spamtraps yet... (Score:5, Funny)
"I not a linguist" ?
Re:Don't retire your spamtraps yet... (Score:3, Funny)
Radio 4 last night (Score:5, Interesting)
I heard some of the debate in Parliament on Radio 4 last night (I think, I was sleepy). I recall hearing an MP (member of parliament) suggesting in all seriousness that since faxes are supposed to have a reply address, requiring this for email would help matters. His heart is in the right place, no complaints there, but it shows how worryigly easy it is to pass inappropriate technology legislation if the legislators aren't clued up to understand the subtleties.
Re:Radio 4 last night (Score:2)
If you can't reply to a "reply address" it's not really a proper reply address, is it?
Do you think fax laws allow you to put "Mickey Mouse, Timbuctoo" as your return address?
send in the marines! (Score:5, Funny)
These spammers clearly represent a threat to freedom, diversity and sanctity worldwide. We must be swift and decisive in the coming days. A crippling onslaught of spamming faces us and we must stand proud in its defiance.
We must act with haste to bring these spammers to justice. Must we wait for the "smoking gun" of a mushroom cloud? Victory can only be ours if we crush these spammers with our military might.
</bushspeek>and syria.
it *is* illegal in some parts of EU (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:it *is* illegal in some parts of EU (Score:2)
Re:it *is* illegal in some parts of EU (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone has posted a translation of a newspaper article about it: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=63315&cid
bad idea (Score:2)
Re:bad idea (Score:2)
Fortunately, the BBC article writer is a moron. This is not what the law actually says. It only applies to direct marketing emails that are without a prior business relationship, as many other slashdot posters have pointed out.
Thank you, anti-spam campaigners (Score:4, Informative)
Another interesting legal change comes with the Electronic Commerce Directive, which removes ISP's liability when they are acting as a "mere conduit" for illegal information. This is already in force, and marks the end of Godrey v Demon [cyber-rights.org].
Failing to tick the box. Not all spam unsolicited (Score:2, Insightful)
The worst one is phone calls. I moved into a rented place a few years back and took over the phone there. Then, when I moved to a house I was actually buying I thought I'd pay the small fee to transfer the number, because everyone knew it by now.
Unfortunately the last person to use the number before me (A Mr. Brown) seems to have signed up to everything in the universe, given them his phone number and not ticked the "Oh
Authentication, Non-repudiation, Solic. Criteria (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe a new SMTP header can be required to contain the recipient's secret "Solicitor's ID". But then, some money-grubbing person could just delete or alter it and claim to the court that it was never there. I'm not an encryption expert, but there's got to be some way with hashes and PGP or something to prove this.
In the process, you'll first have to prove that the e-mail was actually sent from the sender it claims to be sent from so that you're accusing the right party and the sender can't deny it. Then you'll have to prove that the e-mail's data wasn't somehow altered in transit, whether maliciously or by transmission error, which could botch your methods of authentication.
Another issue is:
By what criteria is an e-mail solicited: sender, subject matter, or both? I might have solicited a receipt from Amazon when I made a purchase, but not Amazon's marketing for related products. I might like to solicit e-mail from anybody about low-priced flat panel monitors, but not any other kind of e-mail from the senders with this material.
And what about combined content? Some solicited, some not. What about domains collectively owned by a number of parties, one of which is on my white list? This thing is going to be a legal quagmire. This legislation is going to have to be thousands of pages long to explain how all of this is going to work.
One more thing... If they require some kind of encryption or special e-mail header, they'll have to make another law requiring all companies and developers who make software with e-mail functionality to change their programs to bundle or imbed whatever special code the government dictates.
poland (Score:2, Interesting)
Spam is already illegal in EU (Score:2, Troll)
Spamming is illegal in Italy, and fined with up to 5000 Euro per incident!
The problem is USA: I cannot repeat it often
loophole? (Score:2)
Of course, if this country is Panama, Liberia or similar, then you don't risk much enforcement in any matter!
(Note that if some major country went in and sunk your boat, then I don't see what could happen next... I don't see Panama or Liberia going to war.
Re:loophole? (Score:2)
What if your boat is registered in no country at all? (Should be ok, as long as it never ever attempts to go into the territorial waters of any country... Just supply it using another boat which is registered and allowed to go into a harbour, just like those casino boats). However, the boat must somehow link into the internet, so just bust the spammers using the laws of the country which supplies IS
Re:Loophole (Score:2, Funny)
Besides, it is hard to get a T1 in the middle of the ocean.
Re:Good - outlaw it. (Score:3, Funny)
This is the same thing that caused BSE (Mad cow disease) I don't think the brits are willing to try this again. Just imagine, thousands of spammers, half looney, twitching and slobbering....wait, I changed my mind.
Re:Good - outlaw it. (Score:2)
Re:"nothing to stop spam from outside the eu" (Score:2)
Well its only the USians fault for chopping bits off in the first place when they were babies. Just to stop them from enjoying sex too much I guess.
Re:ummm.... (Score:2)
> stands now, most spam and unsolicited email is
> modified so that the mail headers read the reply
> to and the X-originating-ip have false values. Or
> just moving my mailserver to another country were
> these laws dont apply.
They may hide their origins, but if they're trying to sell you something they need to give some form of valid contact detail. Otherwise what's the point of their commercial mailing? So that should allow their identity