Competent Authority

In this Draft of Reg., the competent authority is the National Communications Commission (“NCC”). The reasons why the NCC was chosen is that NCC, as the competent authority of communication industries, has more strategies and incentives to actively assist ISPs in filtering spam.

Besides, the competent authority has to highly interact with ISPs in the spirit of the Draft of Reg.; therefore, the NCC is the proper agency to deal with spam and relevant problems.

The main responsibilities of the NCC is to take relevant actions to ensure enforcement and amendment of Draft of Reg., promote ISPs to establish self-regulations, exchange anti-spam policies, encourage industries to develop techniques for anti-spam solutions, supervise the application of relevant techniques, take charge of international cooperation regarding the spam issue and provide anti-spam information to the public.

However, any transaction arising from emails will be charged to the Fair Trade Commission, the Consumer Protection Commission and other competent authorities, not the NCC.¹¹⁸

7.5 Contents of the Draft of Reg.

1. Objective of the Draft of Reg.: the NCC referred to the Can-Spam Act of 2003, the spam Act, directives on privacy and electronic

117 參教育部網站：案例九濫發商業電子郵件，

http://www.edu.tw/EDU_WEB/EDU_MGT/MOECC/EDU0688001/tanet/tanet-IPR/94plan/06_02 _09.htm最後參觀日 2006/8/4

118 The relevant issues Q&A of draft governing commercial electronic email abuse act.

communications, Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations 2003 to set Draft of Reg.. The objective of Draft of Reg.

is to maintain the convenient use of the Internet, minimize harassment resulting from abusing commercial electronic mails and enhance the security and efficiency of the Internet environment.

2. Commercial Electronic Mail: this Draft of Reg. is only limited to any electronic mail transmitted by means of the Internet for the purpose of marketing products or commercial service.¹¹⁹ As we know, this Draft of Reg. regulates only “illegal transmission” and

“commercial electronic mail”, excluding the information in electronic mails and other methods of transmission such as SMS, MMS, VOIP and so on. ¹²⁰Besides, in order to protect the freedom of speech, the subject of this Act is limited to commercial electronic mails, excluding other types of emails such as political speeches.

3. Opt-out mechanism: the NCC considers that it could be difficult for senders to receive prior consent from recipients, and prohibiting senders from using personal information will bring about substantial impact. Hence, it is practical to set up the opt-out mechanism, i.e., through the reply of recipient.

4. Self-regulation Requirement: the competent authority may require ISPs to establish national “Do not mail” data.¹²¹

5. Civil Damages: this Act sets only civil damages, including damages and non-pecuniary loss. Due to likelihood of inconvenient use/ time consumption and difficulty to prove damage, the compensation will range from NTD 500 to NTD 2,000 per email.¹²² A sender is liable

119 Article 2(1) of the Draft Reg.

120行動簡訊具有下列性質，而未納入本法規範: (1)必須發送方與接受方的行動通訊業者有

所協議，才可互通行動簡訊(2)依據電信法規要求行動簡訊的傳送，必須附帶發送來源的辨 識碼，否則不得發送(3)目前行動簡訊引發問題，在於其所傳輸之內容與濫發垃圾郵件的規 範，係針對其不當行為有所不同，因此，在管制模式上應有所不同(4)目前行動通訊業者透 過訂型化契約的方式，約定使用者不得有「傳送不實資訊予不特定人」的義務，因此業者已 透過自律方式，以軟體過濾不當簡訊的發送。

121 Article 6 of the Draft Reg.

122 Article7 (3) of the Draft Reg. .

for damages by reason of the same cause and fact, not exceeding NTD 20 million.¹²³

6. Joint Liability: any advertiser or advertising agent who knew or should have known that commercial electronic mails conveyed by the commissioned sender in violation of Articles 4 and 5 of this Act, shall be jointly liable for any damages to the sender.¹²⁴

7. Class Action: a foundation may file a legal action in its own name with respect to the damages caused by the infringement of this Act, after having been so empowered by not less than 20 persons who have suffered loss or injury.¹²⁵

8. International Cooperation: the competent authority may cooperate with the relevant international organizations to exchange sources, methods of tracing, and other related information of commercial electronic mails.¹²⁶

Chapter 8 Conclusion 8.1 International

Though every country has established its respective regulations on spammers, spammers have been smart enough to flee into other countries which never set regulations on spam or only set lenient regulations to avoid being punished by judicial authorities. In order to solve this problem, the OECD conducted a survey and provided some solutions to the spam issues in developing countries. Recently, more and more International organizations have been established to fight spam.

The existing national organization can only serve as the interface for exchanging information and discussion of cooperation. There is no complete model to solve cross-boarder spam and practical methods are still under development. In addition, there is no balance between cost of surveying

123 Id.

124 Article 7(5) of the Draft Reg.

125 Article 9 of the Draft Reg.

126 Article 14 of the Draft Reg.

origin of spammers and punishment of spammers. Whether ISPs strictly enforce their regulation with users can affect the issues of spammers. More international efforts are needed to clear up spam.

8.2 Taiwan

In order to advance substantial public interest, our country has adopted some restrictive measures on regulation of speech. Following the frequency of e-commence, our country has put more stress on spam, and referred to other countries’ legalizations and drafts “ Regulations Governing Abusing of Commercial Emails”.

It is my opinion that the subject under these draft regulations is not as board as those under regulations of the USA or EU. Our draft regulations are limited to email and do not include other subjects transmitting spam such as mobiles, Instant Messaging, SMS, MMS, VOIP, Bluetooth and so on;

therefore, there will be a loophole in these regulations. The competent authority should consider expanding the subjects. In addition, the remedy under these draft regulations is the claim for civil damages against infringement. However, unlike the USA, which sets the injunction against spammers, infringers in this country may continue to transmit spam to users if he/she releases his/her property from liabilities. Finally, as in the USA and the EU, though the draft regulations may require correlative groups to set National Do Not Email Registry proposed by the competent authority, this information can also be used by those spammers if we can not trace the identification of spammers technically.

Reference:

Periodical (English):

1. Adam Mossiff, Spam-Oy, It’s such a Nuisance (2004)

2. Cooley Alert, the Can-SPAM Act How it affects You, Cooley Godward LLP (2004).

3. Don Passenger and Jeff Kirkey, Information Technology Law:

un-canned Spam: getting it back in the tin, 82 MI Bar Journal (March, 2003)

4. False Claims in Spam, a reported by the FTC’s Division of Marketing Practices, April 30,2003.

5. Gray J. Fechter and Margarita Wallach, Spamming and other advertising issues: banner and pop-ups, ALI-ABA course of study materials, April 2005.

6. Fair Trade Commission, National Do Not Email Registry, a report to Congress, Federal Trade Commission, June 2004.

7. Nicola Lugaresi, European Union v. Spam: A Legal response, Trento University, Law School

8. Spam Issues in development countries, Directorate for science, technology and industry committee on consumer policy, committee for information, computer and communication policy, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(May 26, 2005)

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Department of Information and Communication Technology, University of Trento (2006)

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Tech. Rev, 0001 (2003)_

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4. 林子儀，商業性言論與言論自由，美國月刊，二卷 8 期(1987)。

5. 李婉萍，防堵垃圾郵件立法審議中，RUN！PC (2005)。

6. 洪志郎，你有權拒絕 Spam 造訪你家，網路資訊(2006)。

7. 高銘鍾，病毒傳播篇-擊潰病毒與垃圾郵件的聯手攻擊(2005)。

8. 楊正瑀，返垃圾郵件 政府，網路使用者皆有責任，Source 週報 (2003)。

9. 我們應訂定返垃圾郵件法圖利 ISP 嗎?資安觀察(2005)

10. 黃立、蔡欣惠，從美國聯邦貿易委員會研究報告看「未經邀約的 商業電子郵件」表示主旨欄之必要性，律師雜誌 311 期(2005)。

11. 黃菁谧，「濫發商業電子郵件管理條例」草案再檢視，律師雜誌

311 期(2005)。

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14. 簡維克、林雅惠，小心！垃圾電子訊息正侵入你的手機-以財產 權及隱私權面向論立法規範垃圾簡訊之必要性，清華科技法律與 政策論叢(2005)。

15. 賀祥宏，中華民國憲法，來勝出版，93 年 8 月。

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17. 蔡蕙芳，與垃圾郵件有關的刑法問題，律師雜誌 311 期(2005)。

18. 周慧蓮，行動簡訊國際規範趨勢，律師雜誌 311 期(2005)。

19. 馮震宇，論網路電子商務發展與相關法律問題(上)，月旦法學雜 誌，36 期(1998)。

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研考雙月刊(2005)。

22. 畢建同，挑戰 Anti-spam 的技術極限-現實與理想之間的距離，網 路資訊雜誌(2004)。

Internet:

1. http://www.cpc.gov.tw The Consumer Protection Commission, Administrative Yuan.

2. http://www.ftc.gov Federal Trade Commission

3. http://www.epic.org/reports/sufer-beware.html Super Beware:

personal privacy and the Internet, electronic privacy information center

4. http://www.gigalaw.com the impact of state anti-spam laws

5. http:// www.ftc.gov/os/2004/10/041012londonactionplan The London Action Plan on International Spam Cooperation Enforcement Cooperation

6. http://www.edu.tw/DEU_WEB/EDU_MGT/MOECC?EDU06990 01/tanent/tanet-IPR/94plan/06_02_09.htm940119 濫發商業電子 郵件管理條例草案行政院第 2924 次院會通過版

7. http://www.fcc.gov Federal Communication Commission