Peter Walker (Oftel) welcomed everyone to the first meeting of the Oftel Internet Forum (OIF). It was explained that this forum has been established due to the success of the service provider (SP) forum. The SP forum was now becoming very broad ranging and it was considered useful to have a separate Internet forum.
There are many topics that the OIF could address, for instance market size and data volume statistics, e-commerce, access to bandwidth and dial up access to the Internet. However it would be for the forum to agree future agenda topics and this would be discussed later.
The topic to be discussed today is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE), also known as SPAM e-mail, and to begin with there would be five presentations from industry and government.
Discussed white paper and UK governments' goal to be best place in the world to do e-commerce by 2002. For this to become a reality, consumers had to be confident in the technology.
With this in mind the DTI need to implement the Distance Selling Directive which highlights the need to regulate UBE, however whether an opt-in or opt-out approach is adopted is open to discussion. The various advantages and disadvantages of both options was discussed and reference was made to the Telephone Preference Scheme (TPS) and Fax Preference Scheme (FPS).
Comments
Clive Feather (Demon) How many countries currently have regulation on UBE? (Thinks 2)
John Thorpe (DTI) Not sure.
Daniel Harris (Cerbernet) Will other initiatives be considered?
John Thorpe (DTI) Definitely yes, as many as possible.
Discussed the practicalities of implementing a statutory opt-out scheme. Oftel described how opt-out registers had been established for calls and faxes under the Telecoms Data Protection Directive, and suggested that a scheme for email could be set up in a similar way - with organisations putting forward their own proposals and tendering to run the scheme. Oftel noted that in running the scheme consideration would need to be given to the international nature of the medium and greater potential for email abuse. They also said that more information was needed on the likely take-up of a scheme by consumers and direct marketers. Oftel suggested that in the case of opt-in no official scheme would be needed as consumers could continue to opt-in through commercial websites to receive mailings of interest to them.
Comments
It was suggested that if some central body purged a list of e-mail address against an opt-out list it would be relatively easy for someone to deduce which e-mail addresses were on the opt-out list. This list could be valuable to spammers.
An opt-in scheme could require a central register in order that people who have opted in can opt-out in the future.
Daniel Harris (Cerbernet) Have Oftel looked at what the Internet community use at present? Any initiatives would need to be accepted by the Internet community.
Ilsa Godlovitch (Oftel) The objective of this Forum is to create a close working relationship with the community. Ideally Oftel would like to be in a position where they eventually agree a proposal put forward by the various groups.
Sally Weatherall (UUNET) The approaches discussed seem to be broadly in line with existing data protection standards. As the Internet is global has the international level been considered?
Ilsa Godlovitch (Oftel) Phil Jones of the Data Protection Register will be addressing this issue.
Clive Feather (Demon) It was stated that the Internet already has experience in operating opt-in schemes using central or distributed lists.
Colin Lloyd (DMA) Should this be approached on an all in or all out bases, or would it be more sensible to have several levels, for example someone could request to receive UBE on say mortgages? Maybe selective opt-out.
Robert Bratby (Colt) Who would be enforced, the originators or the carries of UBE, would ISPs be liable?
Ilsa Godlovitch (Oftel) Oftel expect it to be the originators.
Peter Walker (Oftel) This could be enforced by ISP subscriber contract conditions.
Overview existing enforcement acts. Fresh new look at data protection act may be required as this issue is so different from existing situations.
Comments
Roland Perry (LINX) Need to scale real world to the Internet world. The DMA claim that the total cost of making an unsolicited phone call is approximately £2.50, however there are companies offering UBE services and for £2-50 they will send a message to 50,000 addresses.
Phil Jones (DPR) This is a real problem and one of the reasons that may prevent the use of existing models in these situations.
Simon Hampton (AOL) In addition to the data protection enforcement, it ought to be possible for other legal avenues to be followed to tackle spammers, i.e. under terms of conditions, fraudulent claims or other consumer protection requirements.
Phil Jones (DPR) The DPR would be happy for businesses to sort it out any problems themselves and would only expect to get involved in situations where this was not working.
Guy Marson (Mailtrack) Is there any point in enforcement as people can set up in countries where the act does not apply?
Phil Jones (DPR) This situation has been recognised and discussions are needed with industry to seek their views on how it should be approached.
The opt-out scheme set up the DMA in the US was described. In the UK the DMA are happy to work with government and ISPs to produce a workable scheme.
Comments
No comments.
It was claimed that an opt-in scheme would be better for everyone, ISP would not need to handle unwanted data, telecos would not need to carry it, consumers would not have to receive it and marketers could concentrate effort on people who are interested in their products. Europe mainly in favour of opt-in scheme.
Comments
John Thorpe (DTI) Is there any additional information on the opt-in measures that are being formulated in the five mentioned countries?
Roland Perry (LINX) LINX have an unsolicited UBE Best Code of Practice available on their web site
Guy Marson (Mailtrack) Who are the LINX code of practice aimed at?
Roland Perry (LINX) Entire Internet community.
Simon Hampton (AOL) An opt-out is the most advantageous as it allows more scope for market players to compete (e.g. an ISP could offer to register all its customers on the opt-out register as part of its marketing campaign).
Roland Perry (LINX) This concept already exists, but it must allow people to opt-in.
Colin Lloyd (DMA) The majority of revenue for ISPs comes from telephone call charges, allowing e-mail marketing would increase traffic and thus increase revenue through encouraging people to use the Internet for e-commerce.
Roland Perry (LINX) On balance ISPs want customers to receive the information they want, as this will avoid complaints. Also UBE can act as a disincentive to potential ISP customers.
Simon Hampton (AOL) To further promote Internet use, e-commerce needed to flourish. If e-commerce needs unsolicited commercial communications to make consumers aware of what is available to buy online, then an opt-in would be detrimental to the Internet.
Peter Walker (Oftel) suggested that the floor was opened up to a general discussion and suggested the following questions as examples.
Colin Lloyd (DMA) Need to have a good working relationship between industry and regulator (co-regulation!). In the US the DMA has fully funded the opt-out lists to encourage companies to use the scheme and the UK DMA would like to adopt a similar approach. Any framework must be flexible and adapted to suit the changing conditions.
Peter Walker (Oftel) We are seeing, and want to see, a lot of self regulation but must have a fall back if it fails or is abused. DPR likely to be back-up enforcement.
Guy Marson (Mailtrack) Cost differentiates e-mail from all other services. Unwanted e-mails can easily be deleted.
Peter Walker (Oftel) Yes but recipient must pay to down load unwanted mail before it can be deleted and considerable time may be wasted if large files are attached.
A discussion took place on this issue;
UBE would occupy space on ISP mail servers. It was stated that receiving unwanted e-mail was more expensive that receiving unwanted phone calls or faxes given the time to down load, read and delete plus the call costs. It was suggested that a recipient of UBE could always return it, with a huge attachment, in an attempt to swamp the spammer! It was pointed out that by doing this they could be simply confirming their e-mail address. A question was asked regarding the legality of sending e-mail with invalid return addresses.
John Thorpe (DTI) Under the Distance Selling Directive the return address must be real.
Simon Hampton (AOL) Pointed out that AOL allows its members to delete e-mails before downloading them, thus saving the cost and time associated with downloading large attachments from spammers. It was suggested that it would be simple for other ISPs to implement similar technology.
It was stated that most marketers are responsible and would give the consumer clear options and make it easy to understand.
Roland Perry (LINX) Problem with UBE is not really significant at the moment but more businesses are going on-line every day, so must take action now.
John Thorpe (DTI) The DTI will issue a full consultation paper in the next few weeks, a 3 month period will be given for comments, the comments will be considered and a seminar held. Decision will be made for implementation by 4 June 2000. Businesses will be kept informed and given sufficient time to adjust before 4 June.
Peter Walker (Oftel) asked for possible topics for future meetinngs.
Colin Lloyd (DMA) said that it would be useful for the DMA to have talks with LINX and ISPs regarding technical issues and would like an UBE working group.
Future topics
