Spammers Face Fine up to €250,000 in Ireland

The Irish Government has introduced a law that will impose a fine of €250,000 or 10% of the turnover on business found to be involved in spamming practice.

The Communication Minister of Ireland has introduced the law that makes spamming practice an offensive act. As per the reports, earlier, hackers were charged in the District Court where the maximum limit of fine was €3,000.

Security experts claim that although most of the spam mails come from outside Ireland, the ministerial directive raised the power of officials to break through the increasing menace of uninvited spam mails emerging from inside the Republic.

Also, the legislation, which was made into law in the 3rd week of December 2008, is made to make sanctions tougher against those who send uninvited commercial mails to organizations and consumers in Ireland.

A spokesman from Communications Ministry claims that they are trying to take some strict measures as users are fed up with these types of junk mails, as reported by The Post on December 21, 2008.

Security experts said that presently, internet users in Ireland receive almost 1 Billion junk mails every week. Also, IT Force, an IT security company, around 90% of the total mails received by the Irish business and consumers are found to be spam.

Communications Minister, Eamon Ryan, comments that making spamming an unpardonable offence with a heavy amount of fine on hackers, Ireland is one of the most strict enforcement regimes in Europe, as reported by IrishTimes on December 22, 2008.

Assistant Commissioner, Tony Delaney, added that the law proves to be an important tool to deal with spamming practice. He also comments that the commissioner will charge serious hackers in High Court or Circuit and in some cases, in front of a jury, as reported by TimesOnline on December 21, 2008.

But some security experts claim that it won't make any difference. Today, the problem is coming mainly from the US and Russia. They also added this law will not bring much change in dealing with hackers in those countries.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 12/29/2008