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UK Govt's stand on spam provokes angry backlash

Give him a taste of his own medicine, say readers

The British Government's decision to defend spam has caused outrage among El Reg readers.

Yesterday we reported how the UK forged an alliance with France to defend the right for Net users to have to pay for the displeasure of receiving porn, scams, hoaxes, and other dubious "business" propositions via their in-box.

The feeling among readers - with one exception who backed the Government's stand - is that if e-minister Douglas Alexander is so keen on spam, he won't mind receiving it.

Here's just one email received at Vulture Central that typifies what readers think.

"I just read your article on the Governments failure to introduce legislation controlling Spam. I was just thinking that perhaps if the MP's suddenly found their inboxes inundated with spam that they might think twice about their failure to legislate against it. Why not post every day the e-mail address
of an MP of your choice, and encourage your readers to forward any spam that they have received that day to the chosen MP of the day, with a short cover note, to demonstrate not only the volume, but also the content and dubious nature of some of the e-mails received from companies."

It's a thought.

However, while we consider the consequences of such action, we gave Alexander's big sister a call. She's the e-minister in the Scottish Parliament and terrifically clued-up about IT and the Internet.

Unfortunately, she wasn't available when we called but we asked her spokesman about what she thought about spam.

"I would imagine she hates it," he laughed.

When he asked why we were calling, we said it was because her baby brother seems to think spam is good. We just wanted to see if the Net expert in the family (that's Wendy) approved of Dougie's first major outing as e-minister.

An hour or so later Wendy's spokesman called back to say that "regulation of the Internet is reserved for the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry)".

Yeah, right, but does Wendy have a view on spam?

"No comment."

No comment on spam? From Scotland's e-minister?

Is this a joke or merely the political process at work? When's the next election? ®

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