[SLUG] Re: FwdFWIW: ACA against spam

[Andrew Dorrell <dorrell@nospam.research.canon.com.au>]

Ken Yap wrote:
>  
> The Australian Consumers Association are conducting a campaign against the
> proposed "opt-out" spam provisions that are currently being recommended to
> the feral govt.
> 
> Support the ACA's "opt-in" preference at
> 
> http://203.166.10.91/forums/forums.exe?14@nospam.^2381@nospam..ee6b949
> 


Here is the letter I submitted in addition to my vote if anyone is
interested in emulating:

Dear Policy maker,

Please take into consideration the opinions of long term users and
administrators of internet services with regard to policy on SPAM and
work towards an "opt-in" policy where businesses are not allowed to send
email unless consumers have chosen to receive it from them.

Unlike junk postal mail, you pay for downloading unwanted spam. Also,
the contents are oftem (usually in my experience) offensive: perhaps
including links to porn sites or shonky get-rich-quick schemes. 

I would like to point out that a number of government schools, including
the one attended by my own children were recently the target of an
unthinking porn spammer.  The government paid (through its arrangement
with the internet service provider) for this mail to be delivered!  This
is clearly stupid.

Spam affects the performance of the Internet. Bulk mailouts increase Web
traffic, slowing servers and disrupting the day-to-day business of
Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This means we have to pay more for
Internet access and put up with slower connections. 

If the government were to be truely inovative it might even consider
regulating (based on some kind of opt-in principle) the use of banner
advertisements on web pages.  While school ISPs actively block
inappropriate web sites they cannot selectively filter banner adds. 
Some of these adds, appearing on regular internet pages, are already
starting to border on being offensive in their content.  At the very
least they add considerably to the size and download time for web
pages.  As a result, many more knowledgable users configure their
systems to block all banner adds (at least as many as they can catch). 
This is counter productive to advertisers and perhaps a problem for both
service providers who are dependent on advertising revenue and
businesses attemting to engage in legitimate ecommerce.

I believe a partial solution to all of the above problems starts with an
opt-in policy for email advertising material.

Yours faithfully,

-- 
Andrew Dorrell PhD.        Research Engineer
Canon Information Systems Research Australia     Phone: 61 2 9805 2224 
1 Thomas Holt Drive,  North Ryde,  NSW 2113.     Fax:   61 2 9805 2929
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