Email spam legislation by country

Last updated

The following table represents laws in respective countries or jurisdictions which restrict the use of Email spam.

Contents

Note: Countries / Jurisdictions marked with red are listed in the Spamhaus' Worst Spam Origin Countries (March 2020). [1]

JurisdictionLegislationSectionImplementedRef
Flag of Argentina.svg  Argentina Personal Data Protection Act (2000)§ 27October 30, 2000 [2] [3]
Flag of Australia (converted).svg  Australia Spam Act 2003 Part 212 December 2003 [4]
Flag of Austria.svg  Austria Austrian Telecommunications Act 1997§ 107 [5]
Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium Wet van 11 maart 2003 betreffende bepaalde juridische aspecten van de diensten van de informatiemaatschappij /
Loi du 11 mars 2003 sur certains aspects juridiques des services de la société de l'information
("Law of March 11, 2003 concerning certain legal aspects of information society services")
27 March 2003 [5]
 Flag of Brazil.svg  Brazil None (loosely; Movimento Brasileiro de Combate ao Spam) [6]
Flag of Bulgaria.svg  Bulgaria The Law of electronic commerce (2006)Чл.5,6December 26, 2006 [7]
Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act 2000 (PIPEDA) [8]
Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act 2010 [9]
Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg  Canada Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation 2014 (CASL) [10]
 Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China Regulations on Internet email Services30 March 2006 [5]
Flag of Colombia.svg  Colombia Law of Habeas Data§ 631 December 2008 [11]
Flag of Croatia.svg  Croatia Electronic Communications Act§ 10722 July 2017 [12]
Flag of Cyprus.svg  Cyprus Regulation of Electronic Communications and Postal Services Law of 2004§ 6 [13]
Flag of the Czech Republic.svg  Czech Republic Act No. 480/2004 Coll., on Certain Information Society Services§ 7 [13]
Flag of Denmark.svg  Denmark Danish marketing practices act § 10 [5]
Flag of Estonia.svg  Estonia Electronic Communications Act§ 1031 January 2005 [14]
Flag of Europe.svg  European Union Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications Art. 1331 October 2003 [15]
Flag of Finland.svg  Finland Act on Data Protection in Electronic Communications (516/2004) [5]
Flag of France.svg  France Loi du 21 juin 2004 pour la confiance dans l’économie numérique
("Law of June 21, 2004 for confidence in the digital economy")
Art. 22 [5]
Flag of Germany.svg  Germany Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG)
("Unfair Competition Act")
§ 7 [5] [16]
 Flag of Hong Kong.svg  Hong Kong Unsolicited Electronic Messaging Ordinance22 December 2007 [17]
Flag of Hungary.svg  Hungary Act CVIII of 2001 on Electronic CommerceArt. 14 [5]
 Flag of India.svg  India None (loosely; Information Technology Act, 2000 § 67) [18]
Flag of Indonesia.svg  Indonesia Undang-undang Informasi dan Transaksi Elektronic (ITE) (Internet Law) [19]
Flag of Ireland.svg  Ireland European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Data Protection and Privacy) Regulations 2003Section 13 (1) (b)6 November 2003 [20]
Flag of Israel.svg  Israel Communications Law (Telecommunications and Broadcasting), 1982 (Amendment 2008)Art. 30December 2008 [21]
Flag of Italy.svg  Italy Data Protection Code (Legislative Decree no. 196/2003)§ 130 [5] [22]
 Flag of Japan.svg  Japan The Law on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic MailApril 2002 [5]
Flag of Malaysia.svg  Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 [23]
Flag of Malta.svg  Malta Data Protection Act (CAP 440)§ 10 [24] [25]
Flag of Mexico.svg  Mexico None [13]
Flag of the Netherlands.svg  Netherlands Dutch Telecommunications ActArt. 11.7 [5] [26]
Flag of New Zealand.svg  New Zealand Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007All5 September 2007 [27]
Flag of Norway.svg  Norway Lov om kontroll med markedsføring og avtalevilkår mv. (markedsføringsloven)Chap. 3 - § 151 March 2001 [28]
Flag of Pakistan.svg  Pakistan Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance 2007§ 1431 December 2007 [29] [30]
 Flag of Russia.svg  Russia None (loosely: Russian Civil Code: Art. 309) [13]
Flag of Singapore.svg  Singapore Spam Control Act 200715 June 2007 [31]
Flag of South Africa.svg  South Africa Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002§ 45 [32]
Flag of South Africa.svg  South Africa Consumer Protection Act, 2008§ 11October 2010 [33]
Flag of South Korea.svg  South Korea Act on Promotion of Information and Communication and Communications Network Utilization and Information ProtectionArt. 50 [34]
Flag of Spain.svg  Spain Act 34/2002 of 11 July on Information Society Services and Electronic Commerce [5] [35]
Flag of Sweden.svg  Sweden Marknadsföringslagen (1995:450)
"Swedish Marketing Act"
§ 13b [5] [36] [37]
Flag of Switzerland (Pantone).svg   Switzerland Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (2007)Art. 3, Buchst. o [38]
 Flag of Turkey.svg  Turkey Elektronik Ticaretin Düzenlenmesi Hakkında Kanun
"Act About Regulation of E-Commerce"
[5] [39] [37]
 Flag of Ukraine.svg  Ukraine  
 Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003
 Flag of the United States.svg  United States Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act of 2003)All16 December 2003 [40]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email</span> Mail sent using electronic means

Electronic mail is a method of transmitting and receiving messages using electronic devices. It was conceived in the late–20th century as the digital version of, or counterpart to, mail. Email is a ubiquitous and very widely used communication medium; in current use, an email address is often treated as a basic and necessary part of many processes in business, commerce, government, education, entertainment, and other spheres of daily life in most countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spamming</span> Unsolicited electronic messages, especially advertisements

Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose, or simply repeatedly sending the same message to the same user. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social spam, spam mobile apps, television advertising and file sharing spam. It is named after Spam, a luncheon meat, by way of a Monty Python sketch about a restaurant that has Spam in almost every dish in which Vikings annoyingly sing "Spam" repeatedly.

news.admin.net-abuse.email is a Usenet newsgroup devoted to discussion of the abuse of email systems, specifically through email spam and similar attacks. According to a timeline compiled by Keith Lynch, news.admin.net-abuse.email was the first widely available electronic forum for discussing spam.

Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as data privacy or data protection.

Various anti-spam techniques are used to prevent email spam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CAN-SPAM Act of 2003</span> American law to regulate bulk e-mail

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 is a law passed in 2003 establishing the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail. The law requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. Introduced by Republican Conrad Burns, the act passed both the House and Senate during the 108th United States Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile phone spam</span> Unwanted communication through a mobile phone

Mobile phone spam is a form of spam, directed at the text messaging or other communications services of mobile phones or smartphones. As the popularity of mobile phones surged in the early 2000s, frequent users of text messaging began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited commercial advertisements being sent to their telephones through text messaging. This can be particularly annoying for the recipient because, unlike in email, some recipients may be charged a fee for every message received, including spam. Mobile phone spam is generally less pervasive than email spam, where in 2010 around 90% of email is spam. The amount of mobile spam varies widely from region to region. In North America, mobile spam steadily increased after 2008 and accounted for half of all mobile phone traffic by 2019. In parts of Asia up to 30% of messages were spam in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email spam</span> Unsolicited electronic advertising by email

Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s, and by 2014 was estimated to account for around 90% of total email traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Spamhaus Project</span> Organization targetting email spammers

The Spamhaus Project is an international organisation based in the Principality of Andorra, founded in 1998 by Steve Linford to track email spammers and spam-related activity. The name spamhaus, a pseudo-German expression, was coined by Linford to refer to an internet service provider, or other firm, which spams or knowingly provides service to spammers.

Email harvesting or scraping is the process of obtaining lists of email addresses using various methods. Typically these are then used for bulk email or spam.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulletproof hosting</span> Internet service for use by cyber-criminals

Bulletproof hosting (BPH) is technical infrastructure service provided by an Internet hosting service that is resilient to complaints of illicit activities, which serves criminal actors as a basic building block for streamlining various cyberattacks. BPH providers allow online gambling, illegal pornography, botnet command and control servers, spam, copyrighted materials, hate speech and misinformation, despite takedown court orders and law enforcement subpoenas, allowing such material in their acceptable use policies.

The Data & Marketing Association, also known as the DMA, is a trade organization for marketers. In 2017 their web site stated "Yes, 100 years ago we were the Direct Mail Marketing Association and then the Direct Marketing Association. Now we embrace …"

The history of email spam reaches back to the mid-1990s when commercial use of the internet first became possible - and marketers and publicists began to test what was possible.

In online advertising, contact scraping is the practice of obtaining access to a customer's e-mail account in order to retrieve contact information that is then used for marketing purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Network Advertising Initiative</span>

The Network Advertising Initiative is an industry trade group founded in 2000 that develops self-regulatory standards for online advertising. Advertising networks created the organization in response to concerns from the Federal Trade Commission and consumer groups that online advertising — particularly targeted or behavioral advertising — harmed user privacy. The NAI seeks to provide self-regulatory guidelines for participating networks and opt-out technologies for consumers in order to maintain the value of online advertising while protecting consumer privacy. Membership in the NAI has fluctuated greatly over time, and both the organization and its self-regulatory system have been criticized for being ineffective in promoting privacy.[Missing Citation]

Visitors to Israel must obtain a visa from one of the Israeli diplomatic missions unless they come from one of the visa exempt countries. All visitors must hold a passport that is valid for 6 months after the date of departure from Israel.

The Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, is Canada's anti-spam legislation that received Royal Assent on December 15, 2010. The Act replaced Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), which was passed by the House of Commons, but died due to the prorogation of the second session of the 40th Canadian Parliament on December 30, 2009. The Act went into effect July 1, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Data Protection Regulation</span> EU regulation on the processing of personal data

The General Data Protection Regulation is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of EU privacy law and human rights law, in particular Article 8(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. It also governs the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA. The GDPR's goals are to enhance individuals' control and rights over their personal information and to simplify the regulations for international business. It supersedes the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and, among other things, simplifies the terminology.

A cold email is an unsolicited e-mail that is sent to a receiver without prior contact. It could also be defined as the email equivalent of cold calling. Cold emailing is a subset of email marketing and differs from transactional and warm emailing.

Unsolicited advertisement comprise all of, but are not limited to:

References

  1. The Spamhaus Project - The Top 10 Worst Countries
  2. "PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION ACT". Archived from the original on 2008-08-14. Retrieved 2008-08-28.
  3. "Argentina Personal Data Protection Act (2000)". Archived from the original on 2009-04-08. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
  4. SPAM ACT 2003
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "OECD Task Force". Archived from the original on August 27, 2008. Retrieved 2008-08-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. www.spamlaws.com
  7. ЗАКОН ЗА ЕЛЕКТРОННАТА ТЪРГОВИЯ
  8. "Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act". Archived from the original on 2011-03-09. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
  9. Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act
  10. Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation
  11. "Ley Habeas Data" (PDF). Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  12. "Zakon o elektroničkim komunikacijama" . Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 4 ITU SURVEY ON ANTI-SPAM LEGISLATION WORLDWIDE [ permanent dead link ]
  14. Electronic Communications Act
  15. "EUR-Lex - 32002L0058 - EN - EUR-Lex". 12 July 2002.
  16. The New German Act Against Unfair Competition, Jan Peter Heidenreich
  17. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-11. Retrieved 2008-08-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  18. Laws For Spam Regulation
  19. Indonesian Government Ratified Internet Law: Death to Bloggers' Voice?
  20. SI 535/2003 in the Irish Statute Book
  21. (in Hebrew) חוק התקשורת (בזק ושידורים), התשמ"ב-1982
  22. "Docweb - Garante Privacy".
  23. http://www.skmm.gov.my/what_we_do/ins/regulatory.asp
  24. "Data Protection Act" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-08. Retrieved 2012-03-18.
  25. Office of the Data Protection Commissioner [ permanent dead link ]
  26. "Dutch DPA - Personal Data Protection Act". Archived from the original on 2006-05-24. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
  27. New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs
  28. "Lov om kontroll med markedsføring og avtalevilkår mv. (Markedsføringsloven) - Lovdata".
  29. "AMLAW: Electronic/Cyber Crimes Ordinance Promulgated in Pakistan". Archived from the original on 2008-09-18. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
  30. "Full Text of Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance 2007" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-04-11. Retrieved 2008-08-31.
  31. "The Spam Control Act Comes Into Effect". Archived from the original on 2008-06-13. Retrieved 2008-08-12.
  32. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2015-04-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  33. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-02-05. Retrieved 2015-04-21.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  34. Korea Legislation Research Institute, Korea Law Translation Center. Statutes of the Republic of Korea
  35. "Act 34/2002" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-11-09. Retrieved 2008-08-18.
  36. Swedish Marketing Act
  37. 1 2 The Marketing Act
  38. "SR 241 Bundesgesetz vom 19. Dezember 1986 gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (UWG)".
  39. Act About Regulation of E-Commerce
  40. "CAN-SPAM Act of 2003". Archived from the original on 2016-02-13. Retrieved 2008-08-12.