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:
- That this report be received.
- That the Terms of Reference for the Anti-Spam Task Force be accepted by Council.
- That the proposed breakdown of the funds allocated to the Task Force under the 2005-2006 business plan be noted.
- 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.