Japan cracks down on junk e-mail

Many people must start the day with the unwelcome ritual of deleting spam from their PCs and cell phones. To deal more severely with senders of junk mail, a bill to amend the Law on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic Mail was presented to the Diet last month.

Advertisements constitute the great majority of spam. Under the current law, advertising mail may be sent without the recipient's prior consent if it meets certain conditions, such as the mail contains a message to the effect that it is an "unsolicited advertisement". Spamming becomes unlawful only if the sender keeps sending mail after it has been rejected by the recipient.

But with unscrupulous spammers, the recipient risks becoming inundated with more junk mail by returning unwanted mail. This is a vicious circle that plagues many people.