Website reviews

Although I have only recently (Journal, November 2006) covered the topic of spam (or junk) email, it’s time for an update.

Scotching spam

Although I did make mention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 in the last review, the only route for redress I outlined to you was a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority – an option described by one anti-spam activist as “a waste of time for everyone involved” (Nick Brooke of etyries.com).

While the relevant enforcement agencies from the US, the UK and Australia have entered into a memorandum of understanding (http://digbig.com/4srnc), I will not be holding my breath in anticipation of an immediate cessation of unsolicited email. However, I have discovered that there is another option available to the recipient of European spam email to a personal (not business) email address: litigation!

The United States of America has had its imaginatively titled CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act (sic) of 2003 for a while now. Who said President “Dubya” was all bad? This has allowed various internet service providers to take lawsuits against spammers who use their email services. See, for some examples of cases, Yahoo!’s “spam and the law pages” (http://antispam.yahoo.com/spamandthelaw) and AOL’s equivalent (http://legal.web.aol.com/decisions/dljunk). Microsoft apparently has an anti-spam litigation team which numbers 65 or more.

Okay, but if you are neither an internet service provider, nor based in America, what is there to be done?

Direct Marketing Association

www.dmaconsumers.org/emps.html

The Direct Marketing Association (or DMA) operates the mail preference service http://mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr and the telephone preference service http://mpsonline.org.uk/tps. I have registered for both of these, and it does indeed dramatically reduce the volume of junk mail and cold calling I receive. It may be worth registering with the equivalent email service to be found at this website. However, since most spam is from organisations which (a) are not members of the DMA, and (b) do not care about “washing” their lists of email addresses by removing registered consumers, a dramatic reduction in unwanted email is unlikely.

Scotch Spam

www.scotchspam.org

Gordon Dick, who evidently resides somewhere within the jurisdiction of Edinburgh Sheriff Court, takes a much more direct approach. Direct to the small claims desk of his local sheriff court, that is. So annoyed was Mr Dick with the unsolicited commercial email he received from Transcom Internet Services, he threatened and then took legal action. Claiming a grand total of £750 in damages for the inconvenience and suffering of receiving a spam email, Mr Dick details on his website the exact process he went through in finally getting and extracting a decree for that amount, plus expenses for a party litigant on the summary cause scale. The website also has details of claims which the author and others have settled out of court. It’s (almost) enough to make you want to turn off your spam filter.

The website itself is well put together and does not overload you with information. In the grand tradition of consumer or voluntary websites of recent years which have offered assistance in claiming for unlawful bank charges (e.g. www.bankcharges.info), the Scotchspam website gives you free sample letters to use, hints and strategies and even suggested wording for a small claim action.

NB – as of 24 April 2007, no payment had been received by Mr Dick from the spammers, despite a call from a debt recovery company.

Spam Legal Action

http://spamlegalaction.pbwiki.com

This website is the England & Wales equivalent of Scotchspam, but not quite as good. It is set up by a Nigel Roberts, who settled an anti-spam claim in the English courts for £300. Again, there are copies of all the relevant documents (including the cheque he received). This would be the website to check if you were suing in England or Wales. It also has a useful set of links to other websites on a similar theme.

The wiki format employed by the site is all very now, very Web 2.0 – but despite considerable media interest in Mr Roberts’ case, there don’t seem to be many people contributing to the site at present. Also, the layout isn’t as clear as it could be, there are some important links broken and the navigation options are only available from the front page. Which is plain annoying. Like spam.

Legal notice

SPAM is a registered trademark of Hornel Foods Corporation. Use lower-case letters to indicate the electronic junk mail instead.