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Competition Bureau Obtains Consent Decrees Against Two Spammers

Nearly a year after its last round of anti-spam actions, the Canadian Competition Bureau yesterday announced settlements with two Canadian spamming operations that used spam to promote a "bogus" product called Fuel Saver Pro.  The joint announcement with the FTC suggested that there were hundreds of victims worldwide from the spam scam.  It is encouraging to see the Bureau move forward with collaborative actions against Canadian-based spammers, though a skeptic might note that an annual end of the year action isn’t likely make a significant dent in Canadian-sourced spam.

Indeed, notwithstanding these cases, the big Canadian question remains how a new government will address the spam issue after the January 23rd election.  The Spam Task Force (of which I was a part) issued its recommendations for new anti-spam legislation last May.  While the election call may have cut short an official response to those recommendations, all political parties should be asked to state their position on the Task Force recommendations and the likelihood of tough, new Canadian anti-spam legislation in 2006.

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