UK Makes Spamming a Fineable Offense

woodhouse writes "The BBC has an article about the new UK anti-spamming law which comes into force later this year. Under the new law, spammers can be fined up to 5000 pounds in a magistrates court, or an unlimited amount in the crown court. Sadly, prison terms won't be used to enforce of the new law."

Re:spamhaus rebutts this claim

[Morosoph]

The BBC article [bbc.co.uk] sais:

Under the new law, companies will have to get permission from an individual before they can send them an e-mail or text message.

Whereas Spamhaus [spamhaus.org] say:

From 11 December it will be legal to send spam to the millions of hapless employees of British businesses (as long as each spammer gives each employee the opportunity to 'opt-out' of his individual spam campaign).

So which is right?

I'd assume that it is Spamhaus. Shame the BBC can't get their stories straight :-(

Re:spamhaus rebutts this claim

[Frymaster]

I'm looking forward to seeing how the spammers abuse the law, and how (hopefully) they strengthen the law in the future.

and keep strengthening and strengthening the law. why are we so eager to expand government control over an unfettered means of communication? because spam is "inconvenient"?

this is the thin edge of the wedge that gets the state to control what goes in your inbox.

Let's take a different view...

[rutledjw]

First things first:

- This law won't solve the problem even in the UK

OK, done, I agree. However, there are ramifications beyond that. What we've done is go from SPAM is a nuisance to SPAM is illegal. Spammers _LOSE_ rights here. We won't have any of this nonsense of spammers suing ISPs preventing them from cutting off service or suing AOL for blocking their trash.

What if the law is expanded? Any company who gleans profits FROM spam forfeits that money?

Hello? Now we're hitting them right where it hurts, in the balls! No wait, that's where _I_ want to hit them, that would hit them in the pocketbook. Close enough for me.

So while this law won't solve the problem, it helps. The only thing if worried about is legislation that encourages gov't monitoring or other Big Brother type activities...

hope it's not a bumpy start

[jqh1]

Anti spam laws are great, and I hope they keep coming. I get a little jolt, though, when I think of most of the law enforcement professionals and judges I know determining who was responsible for spamming.

I run a free anti-spam service (disposable email) and, probably intentionally, spammers have used disposable addresses from my service as the reply-to or "list removal" address on more than a few spam messages (note: they don't use my server to send the spam -- it's usually some open relay). They generally don't receive any email through these addresses because they get invalidated right away -- either by me or automatically. It really really looks like a simple smear campaign, and certainly has that effect.

The result is that I get angry emails, and even phone calls threatening to sue from the people who receive the spam. They assume that I'm somehow responsible for sending the spam. They almost all chill out as soon as I explain the situation, but after a big spam frenzy from one these ##*$!!#@, I find myself doing a lot of explaining.

I also live in America (*you insensitive clod!*) and I'm definitely not prepared to appear in a British court to explain something like this. Enough about me, though, the "Joe Job" is a fairly frequent occurrence these days (whether it is the intentional use of someone else's address in spam -- the true Joe Job, or the mere incidental use of someone's address that was picked at random). I'm sure the legal system will get smart over time, and hopefully will start out that way -- I can't help thinking there's be bumps, though.