Britain became Europe's second country to criminalize spam September 18, with a new law imposing $8,057 fines on spammers if convicted by a magistrates' court but unlimited fines if convicted in jury trials. They would not face prison under the law, which takes effect December 11.
"These regulations," said Communications Minister Stephen Timms in an official statement, "will help combat the global nuisance of unsolicited e-mails and texts by enshrining in law rights that give consumers more say over who can use their personal details."
According to Reuters, the law defines spam as messages sent to consumers without the sender first establishing a consensual customer relationship.
The British Office of the Information Commissioner will enforce the new law, which doesn't cover workplace e-mail addresses. Spam fighters had wanted a blanket law covering all spam, not just that reaching home computers. Indeed, spam fighter Spamhaus accused the British government of "bungling" the spam law within hours after Timms announced it.
"Britain has disappointed the Internet community by actually legalizing the spamming of British businesses," Spamhaus said in a comment published on its Website. "From 11 December it will be legal to send spam to the millions of hapless employees of British businesses (as long as each spammer gives each employee the opportunity to 'opt-out' of his individual spam campaign). Britain's firms will continue to suffer the onslaught of ever more spam, now from spammers claiming legality.
"Britain's much anticipated anti-spam law has been rendered toothless and will now do very little if anything to stop spam in the UK, instead it will create more confusion and misery for British businesses with spammers now insisting that spamming them is legal," the group continued.
Earlier this month, Italy imposed a new law fining spammers up to $101,600 and a maximum three year prison term. The Italian law also recognizes all e-mail addresses as private and mandates those buying e-mail lists verify every last e-mail address on those lists before they even think about sending a single message to any of them.
