Thanks to what's being called a "dramatic" turnaround from a government task force looking into the problem, Australia is just about ready to can the spam literally - anti-spam laws including jail terms for spammers will be drafted as fast as possible, the Australian press is reporting, following the final report by the National Office for the Information Economy.
The report itself calls for such legislation, and Senator Richard Alston, who is also Australia's Communications Minister, is pushing for it strenuously, according to Australian IT.
The coming legislation will ban spam unless the sender has prior consent by way of such devices as opt-in agreements. "Spam is clogging the arteries of the Internet, polluting the medium with pornography and scams and stealing bandwidth from ordinary Australians," Alston said in a statement.
And his office also said that never mind most spam hitting Australia originates away from that country, the proposed new laws would still be effective, at least in stopping Australians from getting any bright ideas about trying it.
"If people in Australia were to send spam under these laws," said an unidentified Alston spokesman, "they'd be taken to court and punished. .. they're not just for symbolic deterrent value."
