Italy plans to jail spammers

The Italian government is planning to implement strict new measures to punish individuals and companies found guilty of sending unsolicited emails.

If found guilty of trying to profit through the sending of spam, those caught face up to three years in prison.

The bold initiative is likely to be welcomed by internet users inundated with ever-increasing levels of spam and represents a growing understanding among policy-makers of the need to treat 'virtual crimes' in the same way you would physical or material crimes such as theft or vandalism.

Many companies are losing at least half of their bandwidth to spam and are also being robbed of man-hours, due to the time taken by staff dealing with the spam flooding in through the mail server. The Italian government has now recognised this widespread act of theft.

The move is also likely to call for similar action across the rest of Europe and worldwide - as governments acting in isolation are unlikely to be able to stamp out what is, in essence, a global problem.

EU legislation intended to outlaw spam is set to come into effect next month, but critics of the new policy believe it falls well short of being an effective deterrent or long term solution.

Simon Halberstam, partner and head of ecommerce law at Sprecher Grier Halberstam, said: "This all sounds good in principle but it's really not going to work in practice. Because of where the majority of spam originates [from countries such as China and Korea] it's not really an issue what Italian law says. Are the Italian police going to be able to track these people down and are they going to be able to prosecute them? The answer on both counts is 'no'."

Halberstam expressed concerns that the only people this law will punish are going to be marketers who are perhaps borderline legitimate, who just break the rules through ignorance rather than a malicious intent to spam.

"What is needed to beat spam is a technical resolution - better filtering is what will solve this problem, not legislation," he added.

Andrew Freeman, managing director of CRM Technologies, who handles direct marketing for a number of large blue chip companies, doesn't believe a similar initiative could catch on in the UK. However, as a company using email as a legitimate marketing tool he admitted he would welcome it.

He has no sympathy for marketers who may now fall foul of stricter Italian laws.

"I think most legitimate marketers are now embracing the permission marketing model and I don't really think that ignorance is a defence any longer," he said, warning companies who are sending mass mails to ensure they are within the law, because harsh custodial sentences will most likely be no respecter of grey areas.