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Spam Your Rights Online

Canada Task Force Calls For Anti-Spam Law 91

Posted by timothy from the lessig-for-spam dept.
Canrights writes "Canada's National Task Force on Spam released its final report today. Despite prior spam actions on privacy grounds in Canada, the task force is calling for a tough new anti-spam law including penalties for failure to obtain appropriate opt-in consents before sending commercial email as well as private right of action to encourage Canadian lawsuits against spammers. Professor Michael Geist, who headed up the legal aspects of the task force, provides a good summary of the recommendations."
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Canada Task Force Calls For Anti-Spam Law More

Canada Task Force Calls For Anti-Spam Law

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  • Idea (Score:1, Redundant)

    by COMON$ ( 806135 )
    Here is an idea, JUST STOP CLICKING ON THE FRIGGIN SPAM LINKS! If you get spam delete it! No law or filter is going to get rid of spam.

    Of course this has never been said on /. yet. mod me redundant please but hopefully eventually joe user will catch on.

    • Re:Idea (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Phil246 ( 803464 )
      unfortunately, the average user is still clueless and continues to both click on, and buy things from these emails :/
      • "unfortunately, the average user is still clueless and continues to both click on, and buy things from these emails :/"

        This is precisely why capitalism works, don't you see!

    • Re:Idea (Score:2, Insightful)

      by stillmatic ( 874559 )
      There definately are ways of eliminating spam. ISP's just need to wake up to the economic reality that moving spam across their networks is wasting money.
      • Yup, you are the only one with a clue here. Spam can be removed by deep scanning routers. If the backbones won't carry it, then spam will necessarily stop.
        • If that was practical it would have been done already. Do you really think the ISP's enjoy thousands of emails wasting their bandwidth?

          Some spam can be easily filtered out and some can't. As soon as you figure out how to filter one type the spammers come out with another.

          The only way to stop spam completely is to remove the financial reward for spamming and I don't see that happening.
    • Unfortunatley Joe User doesn't read Slashdot.
    • I think most people realise that getting rid of spam utterly is impossible, so long as there are countries that allow it, and ISPs that profit from it. But making it more difficult to send can't possibly hurt.

      Furthermore, I'd argue that spam filtering has been a great success. It doesn't solve the bandwidth problem, but it does prevent the lost productivity spent deleting 100+ spam messages a day (in my case).
    • Spammers don't care if you don't buy anything from the spam. The people who pay the spammers to spam you with their product might care, but there is an unending supply of suckers who believe that all they have to do is pay someone $500 for an "email blast" and the money will roll in.

      • ...but there is an unending supply of suckers who believe that all they have to do is pay someone $500 for an "email blast" and the money will roll in.

        That is all they have to do, because there are plenty of stupid people out there who respond to it. If we drastically reduce the number of people responding (big if, and I've no idea how to, short of physical violence) then the money will stop rolling in, and they'll have to find some other way to get us to part with it. The only long term workable solution
    • This won't happen until people treat their inboxes like their telephones. Even a decade ago, I felt like my privacy was invaded when I got phone spam. Therefore, I learned what it took to keep it to a minimum.

      When the general public starts treating email as a legitimate communications channel, rather than a novelty, we will see significant falloff of spam.
    • They hear you ...

      From the report (p 24 Chapter 5 "Promoting Public Awareness") "Some of the simplest messages - such as 'do not open unsolicited emails,' 'do not buy from spammers' and 'do not provide personal information if you are not certain who you are dealing with' - have either not yet reached all users or not been understood. For example, the Ipsos-Reid Ipsos Trend Report Canada for May-June 2004 reported that more than one third of online Canadians open their spam emails, and that the main reason t

  • You know they'll always get their ham ... byproduct ... um, email.

    About time an efficient and methodical group was let loose upon the denizens of the underworld who send out spam. Their chief weapons are Politeness, Sincerity, and a Stringent Application of Canadian Law to preserve a spam-free environment ...

  • Precisely which "tough penalties"? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 18, 2005 @05:26PM (#12571123)
    the task force is calling for a tough new anti-spam law including _____ penalties for failure to obtain appropriate opt-in consents
    Is "death" the missing word?
    Or are there some bulk mailers for whom life in a forced labor camp on water and SPAM would do? (I know that latter thought risks being modded down for undue leniency...;-))
    • Your post is a bit... overdone. I'm sure you were exaggerating to express your extreme dislike, but it reminded me of a Dave Barry quote:

      " 'I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.'

      What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II."

  • I notice Geist says that Opt-In will be enforced (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2005 @05:27PM (#12571141) Homepage Journal
    as opposed to the totally unworkable opt-out-unless-you're-rich-and-powerful US approach to spam.

    Cool!

  • Canada is currently a relatively non-litigious society. It would be nice if it would stay that way. The use of litigation to effect change in a society or business community seems rather suspect: it puts in place a very odd set of incentives. Lawyers get more money the more problems there are, and individuals must fear the lack of liability insurance. Lawyers and insurance companies have a lot to gain from encouraging a litigious society while individual people have nothing to gain (that I can see).
    • Totally agree on not wanting to become litigious. There's way too much drive to the courts in the US, and it hasn't really seemed to improve anyone's quality of life. People need to get some savvy and stop being so gullible. Cons and suckers will always be with us, and the only real way to save yourself is to figure out how to take care of yourself. You can say all you like that you want to "get tough" on something, but in the end, no one is going to watch your ass but you. Unless you are in porn, that is.
    • What litigation? They're just going to arrest spamsters. No lawyers need be involved.

    • The use of litigation to effect change in a society or business community seems rather suspect: it puts in place a very odd set of incentives. Lawyers get more money the more problems there are, and individuals must fear the lack of liability insurance. Lawyers and insurance companies have a lot to gain from encouraging a litigious society while individual people have nothing to gain (that I can see).

      I suspect the reason for that is that corporate America has little accountability. The only recompense t

    • Re:I don't like the encouragement to litigation (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Husgaard ( 858362 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2005 @06:12PM (#12571508)
      In Denmark where I live we also have also a relatively non-litigious society.

      We have anti-spam laws, but these are constructed so that it is almost impossible for an individual or a company to start a court case against a possible spammer.

      OTOH we have a public institution Forbrugerombudsmanden [forbrug.dk] (in danish). They accept complaints on any kind of possible spam originating from Denmark.

      When too many spam complaints are directed to them they go to court against the spammer. I don't think they have ever lost a court case against spammers, and in the cases where they have won the fines have been high enough to stop the spammer and stop other possible spammers from even starting.

      In two cases I know that danish spammers have stopped after I have threathened to tell Forbrugerombudsmanden [forbrug.dk].

      Does it help? Well, just look at the amount of spam originating from Denmark.

    • Relatively non-litigious doesn't mean completely non-litigious. Canada is less litigious than the next guy, but the next guy is the United States!

  • Do not e-mail list (Score:4, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2005 @05:33PM (#12571192)
    The U.S. FTC "do-not-call" list worked wonders for phone spam for our household. We used to get at least 40 phone spams per month and now get less about 3 per month. Perhaps it could be employed to reduce the volume of spam, too.

    To prevent contributing to spammers' DB of addresses, the list could be handled on a query-only basis. It's not fool proof, but any spammer caught with an HD full of "do-not-email" names would be in for a world of hurt.

    I'm sure this proposal will get the obligatory "why this won't work" form letter, but then what solution to spam doesn't have a a long list of problems.
    • The U.S. FTC "do-not-call" list worked wonders for phone spam for our household. We used to get at least 40 phone spams per month and now get less about 3 per month. Perhaps it could be employed to reduce the volume of spam, too.

      Same here. The only phone calls I get now are from friends, relatives, and companies I actually do business with. How sweet it is!

      But so long as most spamhauses are in Florida, I predict nothing will be done here in the US, so I salute Canada for doing something whilst we fidd
    • Yeah here, publish my email addresses to the spammers so they REMOVE ME FROM THEIR LIST. These are my really real email addresses. Make sure these stay top secret, mKay?

      If it works GOOD, next week I'll send you the list of Credit Card and Bank account numbers the Phishers aren't allowed to use too.

      Thanks Uncle Sam, glad you are involved now. I'm sure a new Department of Email Security is on the way. I bet these spammers back off when they see our threat level at Mauve, or Taupe.

    • Actually considering that most spam isn't opt-in, wouldn't legal spammers *need* this list of do-not-spam email addresses to make sure that they don't mail people on it? Wouldn't the list need to be public to make sure you wouldn't be comitting an offense?

  • when most spam is coming from abroad, this law helps how?
    • To quote Michael Geist " While Canada alone is not able to deal with the spam problem, we must at least deal with the spammers in our own backyard. "
      • At one time I was going to do a Toronto Spam Tour [google.com.tr] and put up pictures of the places of various spammers around Toronto. I never got around to it, and a lot of them seemed to vanish over the last few years. I suspect that's stealth for some of them. e.g. it's been years since I received a spam that lead back to Dynamic Pipe [spamhaus.org]/ Pythonvideo / Webfinity / Web Krew, but I have no doubt at all that they haven't stopped spamming.

        The Spam Tour site would be a nice match with this one. [primus.ca]

  • Now here's something Canada and the US have in common:

    Pass a law for nothing!

    Constipated? Pass a Law against it!
    Replace common sense with government BS? PASS A LAW!

  • ...won't this merely stop spam coming directly from Canadian sources (excluding infected computers) and force them to either move to a country, or relay their spam through another country, with lax or non-existent rules regarding spam?

    Hope be with ye,
    Cyan
    • Yes. Narrowing down the countries which can be used to send spam from means the spam problem becomes greater in those countries and they are under more pressure to introduce anti-spam measures.

      If it's one small country which 80% of spam comes from, all it takes is a few big players to blacklist the entire country
      • when most spam is coming from abroad, this law helps how? find the broad, tell her to stop.

        Countries which don't have (effective) laws against spam, might also not have (effective) laws against hunting down spammers and making them into spam.
        We could organize safaris.

        Perhaps canada could pass a law to make it illegal to buy anything from a spammer. That might slightly reduce the demand.
    • Considering I get a good 50 spams a day promoting canadian pharmacies, it can't be all bad.
  • I'm for the comeback of the death penalty ;-)
  • Pass a law making it legal to DoS attack any IP found to be the originating source of spam greater than a given threshold and the findinds verified independently by two peer spam-hunting organizations. Post said IP on confirmation and let the script kiddies have at them.

    Spammers need to be hounded off the net. No ifs, ands, or butts. They need to go and should be subject to direct retribution equivalent to their own actions which amount in the aggregate to a DDoS on the mail systems across the Internet.
  • It's pretty much common knowledge that Florida is the source of a hell of a lot of spam. Our country is not the problem.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Complain in the name of the company who operates your mail server.
      • Embassy OF BELGIUM
        3330 GARFIELD ST., NW, 20008
        WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
        Honorary Consulate OF BELGIUM
        11330 N.W. 36TH TE., 33178
        MIAMI, FLORIDA

        Step 1: make a friend at a consulate.
        Step 2: have the consulate write to the attorney general of the state of the spammer. this gets
        -way- more response than j random person.
        keep a paper trail. send stuff thru the mail, on your most official looking letterhead; don't try to do this by email - your email will be considered spam.
        Step 3: contact spammer, agree to st

  • What should be used to threaten Cdn spammers... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Wednesday May 18, 2005 @06:25PM (#12571644)
    Taxes.

    Amend the Income Tax Act to tax revenues from spam in the insane range.

    Canada has incredible legislative talent at finding new taxes to impose on people, and it's about time they start using this power for the Forces of Good.

    Now if that happens and some spammer evades his taxes, it's off to a Federal PMITA prison.

    And no conjugal visits.
  • We just had a provincial election here in British Columbia yesterday. During the campaign, my email was bombarded by spam, from all the parties fielding candidates. I received an average of fifteen political emails per day, on each of my email accounts. Interestingly, one of these accounts was created for, and only known to, the Ministry of Human Resources, a part of the government, and it received just as much spam as the others. If the government is directly sending, or is complicit in the sending of
    • 1) The campaign offices are spamming you, not the government. Volunteers can get a bit over zealous at election time especially when it's over bitter rivalry. 2) Complain. www.privcom.gc.ca 2 may not get you anywhere as it's political spam, but I would anyway. Oddly enough I didn't get any spam about this election though, just a lot of crud about elections in Germany.
    • How did you sign up/where did you give your address out? In our campaign I was very careful with our list, but another candidate wasn't (they didn't bcc: one time, giving us their entire email list).

      It also heavily depends on the skill level of the organization, and if they actually have someone who knows the various tech issues. I've seen everything from web pages created in Frontpage (with major layout issues) to other computer problems. The campaign manager is often flooded with offers during a campaign
      • How did you sign up/where did you give your address out?

        The one that troubles me, I had only given to my case worker, who handles my provincial disability stuff. I created that email account solely for communication with her, and hadn't given it to anyone else. It should never have left that privileged bit, but it did somehow.

  • I heard the name (Score:3, Funny)

    by arodland ( 127775 ) on Thursday May 19, 2005 @12:31AM (#12574470)
    was going to be CAN-SPAM-ADA.
    • Say it over and over..

      to the tune of the the monty python spam song.

      sounds like my mail server trying to deal with all the bloody spam.. spam spam spam...
      canspamada ... canspamada canspamada canspamada..

      sorry

      yes it has been a slow week :)

  • Now that would be some legislation I could get behind. ( just kidding, please don't flame me if you're Canadian. I'm not from Minnesota so there's really not much you can do to me. )
  • I am all for this as long as it does not affect my communications with Mr. Rufus Mukhenze of the Nigerian Bank of Commerce.

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