Spam, eggs and spam

Remember that story about South Korea's spam curfew? I still smile when I think about their naiveté - to borrow from the famous Monty Python spam skit, it assumes spam is something you can choose to leave off a cafe menu.

Well, Australia has gone one better. As of April 11, it's now a breach of the Federal Spam Act 2003 to send out unsolicited email at any hour. Here's Computerworld Australia's story. Fines can be up to AUS$1 million for repeat offences.

Fortunately for companies like IDG Australia, we are already in a position where we've received permission from people to send them our email newsletters. And we can prove it should the government come knocking. But many companies will get nailed for failing to comply - probably out of ignorance.

And this is where the whole law-making thing falls apart. Email is a push mechanism. It's like the telephone in the sense that it's hard to prevent commercial interests from exploiting the medium. In fact, the Washington Post has just posted a story drawing the connection between the "Do not Email" and "Do not Call" lists. Bascially we're trying to patch up a broken communications channel.

An alternative is RSS, a "pull" medium if you will. I'm an avid consumer of RSS feeds for various reasons, primarily because of its ability to save time and open up new sources of information. But ultimately the biggest draw for me is control. I can subscribe to RSS channels on my own terms. I don't need to request anyone add or remove me from an email list.

So in that context, RSS avoids the complications brought about by Australia's spam law. But is that enough to tip the scales in favour of a wholesale switch to RSS?

As much as I love my RSS newsreader (Bloglines), returning to Australia has taught me one very important lesson about email. It's completely pervasive (even instant messaging is scarce). Unlike my experience in San Francisco, RSS is only receives surface-level attention in Australia. Email rules the roost, particuarly when it comes to internal communication. Jon Udell's column on "Email's special powers" springs to mind here: replacing email is easier said than done.

As we collectively incorporate RSS into the fabric of corporate communication and test the waters (I'm testing a Wiki from SocialText, for example), it will be interesting to see if there's a new business model here.

I hope so. Yet there are many nay-sayers, as illustrated by the second comment after this post by John Battelle (yes, the link's to an old point, but it's just an illustration).

Posted by markjones, April 13, 2004 05:37 AM | | TrackBack