Anti Spam laws

The UK laws is a good start but by no means the final solution for us, the laws covers e-mail and SMS spam however there are a number of specific exclusions.

One of these exclusions is that the rule will not apply in the event of an existing customer relationship - which in my experience accounts for 99% of UK originating spam, companies who don't honour the Dataprotection Laws and repeatedly spam their customers eventhough the customer has complained many times and insisted they stop.

Another bit that is being covered by the UK law is the use of cookies, you now have to disclose why and where you use cookies on your web site. Plans are also underway to extend the coverage of the TPS to businesses which means companies can opt-out of marketing calls.

The shortcoming of all this well intended laws ofcource is that they only cover spam originating inside of the respective countries or in the case of UK it will cover the whole of the EU as it is becoming EU regulation that member states have anti-spam laws and that they co-operate with each other in cross country cases.

A further shortcoming here is that the anti-spam parts of the law in the UK does not cover business addresses, this means I can get spam on my company email address and as long as the spammer offers an opt-out clause I cannot do anything about it - this will effectivly pave the way for a whole new legal direct marketing business. It is expected that this loop-hole or shortcoming will actually increase EU originating spam by people who now under the cover of legalities are free to do direct targeted spam at businesses and its employees.

While these are small steps I can confirm that the number of SMS spam I receive went from 2 to 3 a month to none after signing up at the TPS and this is a voluntary system not one enforced by the government. If this is anything to go by maybe some good will come from this and I can look forward to the day that my monthly spam count will go below 5000 / month.