The act stipulates that users can form a group and sue spammers, asking for compensation of US$15 to US$60 per message, if their right to communication is undermined or they suffer financial loss due to spam. The total compensation payable for any one message can be no more than US$610,000, however. The NCC expects the act to be passed in 2008.
In addition to compensation, the NCC plans to ask for stricter regulations regarding commercial mail, demanding that companies create a responding system, and if people express that they are not willing to receive the messages, or do not respond, the companies cannot mail them again.
NCC Commissioner Howard Shyr pointed out that excessive spam not only causes damage to computer hardware but also hinders the process of dealing with everyday messages, the Chinese-language China Times reported Dec. 14.
According to research by the NCC, nearly 80 billion spam messages were intercepted in November by the top 20 Internet services providers in Taiwan, outnumbering normal messages nearly fourfold. If including the spam processed by online mail sites such as Yahoo! and Gmail, the number would be more than hundreds of billions. The NCC said that 95 percent of spam comes from foreign servers, with 85 percent traceable.
Shyr said that victims of spam have the right to ask their ISPs to reveal information about the identity of spammers, but this involves the issue of users' privacy. Therefore, the Computer-Processed Personal Protection Act needs to be amended.
To prevent spam from unnecessarily burdening individuals and the ISPs, countries such as Japan and the United States have also enacted anti-spam legislation that places restrictions on sending unwanted messages and sanctions penalties for spammers.
Write to Amber Wu at amber0207@mail.gio.gov.tw