ADMA legal director: regulate spam black listers

Stan Beer
Monday, 07 November 2005 10:00

Business IT - Security

The legal and regulatory affairs director of the Australian Direct Marketing Association, Jodie Sangster, believes that organisations that maintain spammer and suspected spammer black lists in Australia should be regulated.

Ms Sangster says, "There is always the concern that when there is a commercially or privately run black list you have to have in that sort of scheme some checks and balances. You have to have some means for a company to say this is what happened and so I should be removed from the black list. Unfortunately in some instances that hasn't happened and companies have been put on a black list without being given the opportunity to appeal or put the alternative view forward and that is a huge concern."

According to Ms Sangster, all anti-spam black lists should be required to have an appeals framework built in to their structure.

"If for some reason that can't be the case then the Government should regulate it," says Ms Sangster.

According to Ms Sangster, operators of suspected spammer black lists should be made to conform to a regulatory framework in order to make them accountable for their actions.

"It would be handy if you're going to be running some sort of black list for there to be some sort of framework procedure that those operations have to abide by as well so that you can make sure that companies are not just black listed without having the right evidence put forward to show that they are sending spam. I don't believe this is the case at present. As far as I know companies can simply run their own black lists. The balance for those companies is that they can be taken to court by companies they black list but, if you're talking about small businesses, that's not always a viable option."

According to Ms Sangster, the Australian Communications and Media Authority's strategy of making software widely available to make it easier for organisations to report spam will not be effective. "The huge problem with the legislation is that it doesn't apply outside of Australia. The only thing that I can genuinely think of that will stop people getting the type of things they don't want to get is a technological solution," she says.