Anti-Spam Laws
The United Kingdom, Australia and the state of California are all enacting legislation to tackle the growing spam problem.
England's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations will take effect Dec. 11 and will require businesses to obtain explicit, opt-in consent (except where there is an existing customer relationship ) before sending unsolicited advertising e-mail to individuals. Web sites may not upload cookies or other tracking devices onto user computers unless they clearly give Web surfers the opportunity to reject them. Violators will be charged with a criminal offence that carries a fine of up to £5,000, and anyone who has suffered damages due to a violation can sue the responsible parties for compensation.
In related news, England's Advertising Standards Authority on Oct. 10 published its first decision based on the E-commerce Regulations of 2002's new e-mail marketing requirements. A seminar provider, The Training Guild, had sent marketing e-mail to a consumer who had not opted to receive the mailing. The Training Guild claimed that it had built a list of customers who wished to obtain promotional e-mail, and that many of the users were for businesses--not individuals--and therefore office members would receive the mailings without having asked for them. The recipient's e-mail address, however, was a personal account, not a business one. The ASA finally decided that although the advertisers had bought a list of addresses of people who had opted to receive business information, "it was the advertisers' responsibility to ensure that recipients on the list had given their explicit consent to receive such e-mails," and the Training Guild "had not gotten explicit consent to send the e-mail to the complainant."
California has also adopted an opt-in rule for e-mail advertising. Now it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial e-mail to or from California. Spam recipients can sue for damages of $1,000 per e-mail and $1 million per marketing campaign. Also, the state's attorney general and e-mail providers like Microsoft and AOL have been given powers to pursue spammers.
Australia's federal parliament on Sept. 18 tabled a bill enabling the government to fine commercial organizations that send bulk unsolicited e-mail more the AU$1 million per day. The bill has support from the Australian Direct Marketing Association, but a civil liberties group, Electronic Frontiers Australia, warns that the bill would allow the Australian Communications Authority to conduct "search and seizure" actions without a warrant.
Still the question with all forms of Spam remains: Can even the most stringent regulations prevent the influx of spam from off-shore locations?
BSI Releases Guidelines For Testing Systems with Live Data
Many U.K. companies use real customer data to test their systems, but don't realize that they must use the same degree of compliance with the Data Protection Act when testing as they do when performing live. The British Standards Institute is warning that these companies must comply with the terms of Data Protection Act and has produced new guidelines to assist them. A coauthor of the guidelines, Jenny Gordon, said that although many companies do it all the time, "the use of live data can cause very real problems." She provides the example of a hospital that had been using live patient data to test a system for sending letter to patients. The hospital sent a letter to a boarding school student's parents, informing them that the student had been in a car accident, when in fact there had never been an accident.
European Gaming Projects Now Permitted To Enter Bulgaria
Now that Bulgaria is preparing to join the European Union, it must comply with the Treaty Establishing the European Community. Therefore its government is making legal amendments that will permit businesses registered in the European Union to pursue gambling projects in Bulgaria. E.U. citizens and enterprises will also be able to take part in Bulgarian companies without facing the additional requirements for foreign nationals. Previously, foreign companies could only stage games of chance in hotels, and only if the company had invested more than US$10 million and opened more than 500 jobs.
US Streamlined Sales Tax Plan Would Tax Online Purchases
U.S. Congress on Sept. 25 discussed the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, a legislation plan that would allow states to collect sales tax on Internet purchases. Twenty states are in agreement of a multi-state scheme that would avoid some of the confusion of paying tax to multiple entities. Seventeen states have already enacted legislation to ease the collection and distribution of the taxes. However, only states that have enacted a streamlined tax plan could require retailers to collect taxes online. The House version of the bill would exempt companies that make less than $5 million a year, but the Senate sponsors are waiting for a response from Amazon.com--who would like the exemption dropped--before introducing the bill. Even if the bill is enacted, consumer will not begin paying taxes on online purchases for at least a year.
EPIC's Human Rights Survey
The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International on Oct. 10 released its sixth annual Privacy and Human Rights survey, which reviews Total Information Awareness, the public response to the USA-Patriot Act, traveler profiling, biometric identification and other new technologies of surveillance in 55 countries. The report indicates that the enhancement of governments' surveillance powers is affecting privacy as well as other human rights, and that public opposition is growing.