I saw two anti-spam stories in the same day, one from Australia and one from the USA. The Australian government looks like its done the deals necessary to get their anti-spam laws through the Senate. (Story from Sydney Morning Herald)

And in the USA the President is reported to be close to signing in a USA anti-spam law.

I get a couple of hundred spams a day, and use Mcafee’s SpamKiller software to try and keep it under control. Although I find it sometimes a frustrating program, and it occasionally mis-behaves on my XP laptop, it does on the whole do the job.

What I know for sure is neither of the two pieces of legislation are going to have much effect at all. Most spam is relayed via badly configured mail servers in places like Korea and China, the businesses behind the spams are spread around the world, and tough to track down or prosecute.

Again it highlights a) the price we pay for the magic of email. b) the complete inability of politicians the world over to come to grips with technological issues. They continue to apply old-world concepts to new-world problems. ‘Too many constituents complaining about spam? No problem. Pass a bill, and prosecute’.

Pity they’ll find it impractical and impossible to enforce.