Anti-Spam Bill to be beefed up in Singapore
According to a report in the Singapore’s Straits Times on Feb 13, 2007, marketers who send unsolicited emails and SMS messages will soon have to label their messages clearly or risk facing legal action from consumers.
After consultation with legislators and experts in the field, the Bill was introduced in Parliament on 12 Feb 2007, essentially making Singapore one of the countries to join in a global effort to cut down spamming which was estimated to have cost Singapore businesses some S$23m in productivity loss each year!
Under the Spam Control Bill, marketers must clearly label their messages as advertisements. They must also give people the choice to stop receiving such messages.
Marketers must mark their messages with the letters “ADV” for advertisement to make it easier for the consumer to direct unwanted mail into the electronic bin. They must also include valid contact details so that a consumer can seek redress if he finds the contents misleading.
If consumers opt not to receive any more messages, marketers must stop doing so within 10 days or face legal action. Marketers may face damages of up to S$25 for each message sent, capped at S$1m.
Many observers, including Consumer Association of Singapore’s (CASE) executive director Seah Seng Choon said they preferred consumers to opt in to receive such messages rather than to receive first then opt out as set out by the proposed law.
When approached at her Hong Kong office, the CEO of eOneNet (Asia’s leading Internet Marketing Company)- Fione Tan quipped ”Spamming does nobody any good. It puts the marketers in a negative light and takes away the right of the consumers to decide what they want to receive. That is why at eOneNet, as well as in our seminars and coaching programs, we always practise and educate on the importance of developing our own verified opt-in database. That way we will be able to reach out to our target audience more effectively.”
In addition to anti-spam laws, industry self-regulation and public education is needed, echoed Edward Lim, GM of Symantec Singapore.
To date, Singapore has worked with other countries in enforcement and judicial actions and has joined the ranks of Japan, South Korea, Australia and the USA for having anti-spam laws.
What are your views? Is this Bill (proposed law) going to be easily enforced?
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February 23rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
Yup, think practising on the importance of developing our own verified opt-in database is necessary so that consumer have the right to decide what they want to receive.
February 28th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
This is an opt-out law, similar to the US CAN SPAM ACT, i.e. you are entitled to send out commercial emails provided that you give an option to the recipient to opt-out and satisfy the other conditions imposed by the law.
Although this falls short of the European anti-spam law, which is an opt-in law, i.e. you cannot send emails unless the recipients have opted in to receive your emails, this is a first step in seeking to reduce spams.
However, the spams do not seem to have reduced in the US after the law has been passed for more than 3 years. Let’s see it will work in Singapore to reduce the spams.
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:54 am
spamming mails can be irritating. imagine having hundreds of mails jamming up your inbox which causes important emails to be missed out because of a full inbox. and also receiving an email coming from the same source over and over again. the idea of opting out may be good. but if the companies stop spamming the mails, it would save the receiver a whole lot of trouble trashing it and this would be a much better idea.
June 20th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Spam mail making the online marketing worse, some company try to send their spam email to inrelated target audience or try to spread some virus around!!! Internet user seem to be not trying to take any risk or waste any time to read those email… however, law should be apply to those people who using spam email for another purpose…
my personal experience: When I was in Australia , I received some email from my bank and ask me to put my id: & password for internet banking…
that is ridicules……the email, bank local, everything seem to be origional… but … who knows…