A bill regulating unsolicited commercial electronic messages, including SMS's will be tabled at the Legislative Council on July 12, Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology Joseph Wong says. He hopes the bill can be passed in the coming legislative year. The new law will be introduced in phases and the trade will be given a grace period of up to six months.
Mr Wong said the bill covers faxes, SMS, voice and video calls. To allow limited forms of electronic marketing activities and to address the concern of small- and medium-sized enterprises, the bill will not at this stage regulate real-time person-to-person telemarketing calls.
The bill proposes an "opt-out" regime, whereby the sender of a commercial regulated message is required to provide an electronic address to enable the receiver to request that the sender stop sending messages. The messages should include accurate sender information, while their subject heading should not mislead recipients and number identification should not be concealed.
To support the opt-out regime, the bill will empower the Office of the Telecommunications Authority to form "do-not-call registers" for recipients opting out of receiving further messages. The registers will initially cover pre-recorded voice or video messages, fax messages and SMS or MMS messages.
Deputy Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology Marion Lai said person-to-person telemarketing requires substantial manpower resources and time. The extent to which they can cause a nuisance to recipients is much more limited than pre-recorded messages.
"Nevertheless, if it is decided in future to bring person-to-person telemarketing calls into the ambit of the bill, such a decision could be effected quickly," Mrs Lai said.
International co-operation
As most junk messages originate outside Hong Kong, international co-operation is key to tackling them. "The bill provides a firm basis to enhance such co-operation, particularly with those jurisdictions with similar anti-spam laws," she said.
To avoid potential abuse of the information on the do-not-call registers, the bill proposes a $1 million-fine and five years jail for any misuse."
Posted to the site on 10th July 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/18166.php