Report on Melbourne Consumer Consultation Meeting, 21 May 2003
The meeting was held in Melbourne, at the offices of Maddocks Lawyers, on 21 May 2003. Our thanks both to ISOC-AU director Craig Ng and to Maddocks for facilitating the meeting.
Participants were advised that this consultation process is supported by
funding from the Department of Communications, IT and the Arts.
Below is a report of our discussion.
Spam
The ongoing problem of SPAM was the major point of discussion in this meeting. The levels of SPAM appear to have doubled since Christmas 2002. Spammers often use open email relay servers which were once common but are now rarely considered necessary by responsible administrators. Despite this, many sites still do not secure their open relays and the response has been to publicise them on open relay databases. The open relay databases provide the opportunity for other sites to block the IP addresses being used by spammers.Concerns were expressed about the reliability of the open relay databases. There are sometimes problems with rectifying mistakes in open relay identification, and sometimes maintenance of the lists is not user-friendly. Internet users who are disadvantaged by the lack of open relays include roaming customers, although most ISPs now work around any difficulties. Anonymous remailer services have mostly been abandoned because of SPAM, which may have disadvantaged people living under repressive regimes.
Some users comment that more friendly SPAM is emerging, but even they recognise that it is still SPAM. Email is regarded as the killer application of the Internet. Now the Internet is attracting 'late adopters' who find that within a week there is a 1 to 20 ratio of legitimate email to SPAM. This aspect is really turning people off using the Internet. Filters are useful in cutting down on some of the quantity, but are not a full solution because the user still has to pay for bandwidth and download time.
ISPs such as Bigpond are doing a good job of filtering. Free email accounts often attract more SPAM. Corporate mailing lists are legitimate uses of email, but even for these lists, unsubscribing can be difficult if you are required to for example remember an old password.
Information and fact sheets on dealing with SPAM is available from ACCC consumer affairs and fair trading offices, that advise not to respond to SPAM. ADMA guidelines for telemarketing require removal from lists if you say you wish to unsubscribe. Users wonder what happens if you request to unsubscribe? Under Privacy Legislation companies are required to remove you from their databases, but cuts to Privacy Commissioner budget limits the potential for followup action.
Some SPAM filtering also blocks legitimate mail, for instance those including Unicode headings. Bulk targeting of email address is a much greater annoyance than junk mail and more akin to unsolicited sales call to your home, but these cost you only time to handle. SPAM costs the receiver both time and the charges of ISP connectivity and downloads. What work is being done on kids and SPAM? Sending pornographic SPAM to children's email addresses may breach censorship laws.
The climate has changed so that almost everyone is intolerant of SPAM. Even politicians understand it. Legislation could be useful, but may not be effective without enforcement and similar legislation around the world. Employers can try to filter out all SPAM but risk of losing legitimate email. There are also possibilities for a commercial reputable open relay identification list - SPAM COP was mentined as providing such a service.
The identity theft dimension of SPAM has not been discussed. Definition of SPAM is important, eg in the multicast situation. What is SPAM? For example, sending emails to people who have given their emails for another purpose. There is also the potential of stalking issues.
There is rarely a magic bullet to solve these issues. We need multiple combined strategies. Legislation by itself would not be effective, but it is one step and a start. We are never likely to stop 100% of SPAM, but we can start to make it difficult. The NOIE definition of SPAM is workable. For example one spammer could send 10 million SPAMs and get 30 responses at $10 each that would make the exercise worthwhile. Perhaps we could look at charging for sending bulk email eg charge 1 cent per email, but this would not work for the large number of spammers who hijack other people's facilities and open relays to send the SPAM, then disappear.
There is some responsibility on the ISP end to provide more information
to users. For example, when travelling, a user had to register to use
other ISPs because the only alternative was dialing up the account back
in Australia.
Broadband
Why should speed of bandwidth connections in Australia be slower than in other countries? For example Optus across Melbourne was quoted as having speeds of 300 Kbits, so no bottleneck. ISP are seeking higher fees for a higher download rates, for example Telstra with 128, 256 and 512 download rates. Every provider has a specified speed. We may assume a 512 service, but lack definition on what the service is, each provider uses their own definition of choking. ACA is starting a process of consumer consultation on broadband performance definition.ADSL is not viewed as a broadband technology by some Internet users because is it not a symmetric service and links back to the previous example of 1200/75. Regional ISPs are still concerned about Telstra wholesale charges. Retail cost is comparable at the low end, eg 256/128 is comparable with a second line. Swapping between service providers, email address is a problem. Users have little experience with changing providers. Previously DSL providers did not allow transfer of equipment but DIY installation may be solving this problem. Fixed-term contracts can be a problem with a payout amount. Many attending the meeting were using higher bandwidth at home.
Barriers to entry are high for DSL providers. There are a small number
of providers. Earlier horror stories are being sorted out now but
changing providers needs to be sorted out. In broadband usage content
will be generated by the users. The current asymmetric model blocks
collaborative applications. Also, coverage is still an issue.
Peering
Do people understand the impact of peering on user charges? If you stay on a peered network then it may not count on your download cap but there is no straightforward way to remain within the network. For instance, a graphics shop sending 40meg files between businesses, would be expensive if they were not on peering. There are large amounts of data available but gigabyte-size files are a particular problem for which there is no suitable medium.
Two kinds of users were identified: as a user you have
no choice but to accept a file, consumer content 95% coming from
overseas, compared with business content 95% in Australia. There is no
synchronous situation in the current model. Specialised spot market is
developing for capacity, for example sending film rushes to the USA, 200
gig per day and each telco is participating. Perhaps we could change to
geospatial pricing and hand out the info for free. Applies to health
sector, eg radiology moved to electronic transmission to laptop with
potential savings. The ACCC inquiry on wholesale Internet was noted but
users wondered if the inquiry will lead anywhere and whether this is a
structural or competition issue.
Accessibility
Work by Gary Hardy on public library usage of the Internet was discussed (see http://www.ccnr.net/pat/). These services tend to have high usage, but many people now plan to rely on it as their primary access model. There are cost & mobility issues. Internet terminals have been installed in other access locations as a trial based on 56k dialup, Linux based, nil training. Homeless shelters had highest usage even thoug the users had low education with social problems and low incomes. There were low numbers of people using these access points, but high usage rates. We must remember still a large group relying on these public access mechanisms.General Comments
- SPAM - ISOC-AU could do more work on that. Industry solutions are likely to be strong contributors, and industry should be routinely consulted by ISOC-AU. Clean green image on food, need similar Internet credibility, developing country by country maturity.
- Has UN taken on SPAM through UNCITRL?
- Business value for Australian business. .com.au has credibility and trust. Potential acceptable use policy for domain names through auDA, compared with .com that was abused, eg Australian online casinos that were regulated.
- Acceptable use policy, given current restrictions on domain names, would there be additional advantage, do ABA or ACA monitor?
- Build further security for business, how do they know who they are dealing with on the internet? Look again at IP, eg IPv6.
Tony Hill
President ISOC-AU
21 May 2003