A select committee has recommended a major change to New Zealand's anti-spam bill, suggesting anyone should be able to send unsolicited emails that are of an entirely non-commercial nature and need not desist even if asked to do so by the recipient. The original anti-spam bill said that organisations that sent unsolicited emails to promote their aims or ideals - such as school newsletters and messages from political lobbyists - would fall foul of the spam bill. This is if they did not stop sending messages when asked to do so, by letting recipients "opt-out". The select committee dropped this requirement in amendments it proposed early September 2006.

The proposed amendments also drop the legal requirement that spam be reported to a customer's internet service provider before Internal Affairs could take action. Other proposed amendments eliminate the distinction between emails whose prime purpose is commercial and ones that are primarily promotional, but which contain a commercial element, and lift a ban on possessing or supplying email harvesting software, but bans New Zealanders from using such software to send spam.

This news item was retrieved through the APCAUCE Newslog.
The full article is available at stuff.co.nz.