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Topic 12: SPAM
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This topic discusses the issue of spam.
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The proliferation of unsolicited commercial electronic communications [UCE] or spam is a bane of modern life. It is estimated that spam constitutes about 50% of all e-mail traffic and costs cost internet users 10 Billion Euro a year worldwide.  Spam is a particularly invasive interference with online privacy. Spam can also impede the development of e-commerce through increased customer distrust and reluctance to go online.

Legislative responses: The United States

The United States enacted the CAN-SPAM Act 2003,  which was signed into law on the 16th December 2003 and entered into force on the 1st January 2004. This Act provides that senders of commercial e-mail  must not send e-mails that contain false of misleading header information  or deceptive subject headings.  Commercial e-mails must permit recipients to exercise their right to opt out of further e-mail messages. Commercial e-mailers are given a discretion as to how they provide for this right. They can either provide, in the original e-mail, a return e-mail address or they can provide a clear and conspicuous alternative internet based mechanism for recipients to declare their wish not to receive further communication.  To make this provision effectual, the law states that the system of logging objections to further communications must remain available for 30 days after the date of the transmission of the original e-mail.  Once the sender of the commercial e-mail receives the recipient’s message expressing their desire not to receive further e-mails, he has 10 business days to comply with the request. 

The Act further provides that it is an offence to sell or transfer e-mail addresses to another person.  This provision is designed to reduce the incidence of commercial e-mail lists and is a necessary adjunct to the general prohibition of address harvesting and dictionary attacks under section 6 of the Act. 

The Act imposes an obligation on the Federal Trade Commission to establish a Do-not-E-mail registry 9 months after the date of enactment of the Act, that is the 1st January 2004.  The establishment of a centralised database is essential to a data protection regime. Commercial organisations must be able to quickly and easily ascertain whether prospective consumers wish to receive unsolicited e-mails. Such a database reduces the regulatory burden of compliance on businesses. The act also improves the enforcement regime of the Act through the future provision of whistle-blowing incentives.  An incentive scheme is to be introduced that would grant whistle-blowers a reward of 20% of the total civil penalty recovered in respect of a violation of the Act.        

However, it fails to introduce an individual right of action, instead relying upon ISPs, the Federal Trade Commission and other federal agencies to initiate actions. The Federal Trade Commission will initiate enforcement if the public interest requires it. Therefore, the FTC is not under a duty to prosecute a case and thus, is a rather subjective enfor本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。