Penal Approach to the Spam (Global Approach, National Need)

Spam which is sent for commercial goals and promotion though computer networks to individual's email boxes is a great part of information which occupies sometimes more than 50 percents of emails.Sending of such emails for promotion imposes, on the one hand, serious costs to those who play roles in the cyberspace- and in particular ISPs-,and is a violation of individual's privacy, on the other. At the same time,now, sending of spam has become an organized trade. For the same reason, cheating and illegal ways to gather people's email addresses to send, receive, and see such emails are increasingly used. To control the spam, two main approaches are employed by the States. The first one concerns non-intervention or minimal intervention of the State through technical-educative ways; and in the second one, in addition to the uses made of the above ways, control through enacting and exercising lawswhether penal or legal- is employed. In Iran, in addition to the Act of Ecommerce in which some rules have been considered in this concern, as far two Bills have been prepared; the first one, by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, and the other by the ministry of Guidance and Islamic Culture. The two Bills have been presented to the Council of State. Though none of them has so far been approved, this shows formation of a penal-oriented approach to this phenomenon in or country. The present article discusses the global approach to the spam, and tries to study the need to enact a penal law in our country.