Confirmed: New Zealand's Anti-Spam Law DOA

A few weeks ago I sold a copy of SpamButcher to a New Zealander. I took this as evidence their new anti-spam legislation was not working. Now, other sources seem to be confirming my casual observation.

The new law placed exceptionally tight restrictions on commercial email originating from within the country. The law doesn't do anything to regulate junk email being sent from other nations.

In fact, it would seem New Zealanders are getting about as much spam as ever. The reason is that most spam sent to people in New Zealand doesn't come from New Zealand. It's pretty well understood which countries are responsible for the bulk of spam, and New Zealand isn't one of them.

As so often happens, the citizens of a country have been failed by its government. Users are best advised to deploy one of many quality programs to block junk mail. With the number of legal efforts to regulate email that have failed, you'd think legislators across the globe would know better than to try.

Back