12 Sep
2006

















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     Spam

ACMA, Australia's federal telecommunications regulator, has announced that it has recently executed a search warrant on residential premises in relation to an allegation that an Australian resident was sending "billions of unsolicited commercial electronic messages", ie spam.

Unsurprisingly, most of the over two billion emails were concerned with better living through modern chemicals, ie "primarily promoted Viagra products", although as we have noted in discussing such offers many of the pills don't arrive and much of what does arrive is of problematical quality. Finding that a performance aid has been laced with floor polish, plaster or even rat poison is unlikely to produce the requisite smile on the buyer's face.

ACMA's powers in relation to spam centre on the Spam Act 2003 (discussed here), the Australian counterpart of anti-spam enactments in most advanced economies. The Spam Act makes it an offence for an Australian to be involved in sending spam if there is an ‘Australian link’, with penalties of up to $220,000 per day for first-time corporate offenders and up to $1.1 million per day for repeat offenders. Litigation against several offenders is currently underway.

Interestingly, the current investigation was triggered by information from OPTA, the Netherlands Regulator of Post and Telecommunications. It is a shame that authorities elsewhere are complaisant. Among the treats arriving in one of our in-boxes today was a warning - supposedly from News Limited - that the financial end is nigh.

The nice folk in Vladivostok write

Dear Australian Bank Clients. You must NOT Update or Confirm Your Account information. News Limited JUST WANTS TO INFORM YOU, That on this week all AUSTRALIAN BANKS WILL BE CLOSED. In this list: Commonwealth bank, ANZ Bank, WestPack Bank and others. To get all information about those, that all banks will be closed within 1 week read on our web site.