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21 October 2005

by admin last modified Sep 24, 2008 11:44 AM

Activity Report, 21st October 2005

Overview, Terms of Reference

Since the 2005 AGM, the Anti-Spam Task Force has had a new Chairman and a revised membership, reflecting the change in emphasis of the group now that the Anti-Spam legislation has reached the Select Committee stage. The membership of the Task Force is now as follows:

  • David Harris (Chair)
  • David Farrar (Vice-chair)
  • Rick Shera
  • Grant Forsyth
  • Peter Macaulay
  • Simon Lyall
  • Nick Wallingford
  • Keith Davidson (pro parte)

We expect that as specific tasks arise in future, we may co-opt other councillors and members as needed.

We have recently discovered that no formal Terms of Reference document exists for the Task Force, so one has been prepared using the standard template, and is attached to this report for consideration by Council.

Meetings

Two (or possibly three) meetings have been held since the AGM. The first, in Auckland on September 7 th, was a formal Task Force meeting, in which we planned our activities for the next six months, prepared a formal breakdown of our budget for Business Planning purposes. Minutes of this meeting, as prepared by the ED, are attached to this report.

Another meeting, held on September 8 th, was actually a meeting of the joint InternetNZ/NZDMA/TCF working group on the Spam Code of Practice: there is currently some confusion whether this working group is actually a subset of the Anti-Spam Task Force, or a separate group in its own right. Minutes of that meeting have been prepared by the ED, and will be submitted separately, but as a general comment, I believe the meeting went extremely well, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easily a clear consensus and understanding was apparently reached.

On September 20 th, the Task Force held a workshop at the InternetNZ Offices in which we attempted to solidify our view of an alternative enforcement model that we can recommend to replace the clearly flawed ISP-only reporting model currently outlined in the draft legislation. Members of the INZ/NZDMA/TCF group were invited to attend this meeting, and some did in fact participate. In the course of a three hour meeting, we developed a clear outline of an split enforcement model based heavily on automated processing, and worked on estimated costings for setting up such a model (not with any intention of asking for funding, but as a point of comparison with the Government’s estimates). Jordan Carter, who is the INZ Staff Member responsible for the Task Force, is currently working this into a coherent form preparatory to the Select Committee process, which we expect to begin early in the New Year.

Budget

The Anti-Spam Task Force currently has $40,000 approved in the Business Plan for the 2005-2006 year. During discussions at our first meeting of the year, we concluded that likely expenditure for this financial year is as follows:

  • Domestic Travel TCF Group $2,000
  • Domestic Travel INZ Group $3,000
  • APRICOT Perth (APCAUCE) $4,000
  • Political Advocacy $3,000
  • Select Committee Submissions Preparation $5,000
  • Encourage ISP's to make submissions $1,000
  • Website development $5,000
  • Aus travel re Enforcement Agency learning $3,000
  • Counter-submissions $3,000

TOTAL $29,000

We stress that none of these figures should be regarded as “pre-spent”, and all are likely maximums. We would ask Council to note that we expect to be well under budget for this year.

Legislative Submissions

Our major current focus is to ensure that the draft Anti-Spam legislation is passed in a favourable form. As it stands, most of the current draft is good, but as noted above, there are some issues to do with the nature of the enforcement agency under the act with which we are far from satisfied. We propose to send one or two members from the Task Force to Australia to meet with the ACA (the formal enforcement agency under the Australian legislation), to gather first-hand information from people currently dealing with the issues: this will require approval from the Minister, although we do not believe this will be a significant problem. This learning process is covered explicitly in our budget, and we would ask that Council approve these travel arrangements.

APCAUCE Secretariat

As noted at previous Council Meetings, InternetNZ has agreed to act as a Secretariat for APCAUCE, the Asia-Pacific chapter of CAUCE (the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail). The Secretariat is now operational, in the capable hands of Jordan Carter. While the Secretariat is purely an operational function, and is hence the bailiwick of the ED, there is a clear and obvious synergy between the Task Force and the Secretariat. For this reason, we have assumed that the relatively minimal expense of operating the Secretariat should fall within the Task Force's budget.

The Way Forward

The most significant activity for the Task Force in the next six months is clearly going to be the shepherding of the Anti-Spam legislation through the Select Committee Parliamentary process. We have also commenced a redevelopment of the StopSpam web site, and have begun planning a number of other educational initiatives involving both ISPs and the broader industry, although these initiatives are unlikely to take any obvious form before the New Year.

Recommendations

The Task Force recommends to Council:

  1. That this report be received.
  2. That the Terms of Reference for the Anti-Spam Task Force be accepted by Council.
  3. That the proposed breakdown of the funds allocated to the Task Force under the 2005-2006 business plan be noted.
  4. That Council approve the use of budgeted funds to allow Task Force members to travel to Australia to liaise with the ACA.
David Harris
Chair, Anti-Spam Task Force,
October 21st 2005.
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