NationStates Jolt Archive

Prince Rhodri walks back into the debating hall, to the evident approval of the staff and disapproval of the Steward.

"Honoured delegates, we are delighted to return to these hallowed halls, even if we cannot approve of all the legislation that has been passed in our absense. Such is life, however. We hope that you will forgive us if it takes us a day or two to regain the threads of the various discussions ongoing, and we invite our fellow ambassadors to bring to our attention any matters that they may feel have been unduly neglected.

"In the mean time, we are informed that the subject of 'spam' as it is referred to has been brought to the attention of this chamber. By great coincidence, we have been drafting some simple overarching proposals on this subject while we were waiting for various and sundry scrutiny committees to meet.

(OOC: no, really. The last update date on the file is 25th June!)



Category: Human Rights
Strength: Mild

The United Nations,

ENCOURAGED by the increasing ease of international communications, but

AWARE that this makes some previously local irritations international in scope, and

IRKED at the amount of time individuals waste dealing with unsolicited personally-directed advertising,

1. DEFINES, for the purposes of this resolution, "unsolicited commercial communications" (hereinafter "UCCs") as messages of a commercial nature addressed or delivered to a person or that person's residence that have not been requested in advance;

2. ESTABLISHES the right of individuals to privacy and peace undisturbed by UCCs, should they so desire;

3. REQUIRES member nations to

a. maintain registers of those individuals who have indicated their desire for this right with respect to interactive UCCs ('telesales'), physical non-interactive UCCs ('junk mail') and virtual non-interactive UCCs ('spam'), and

b. enact laws making it illegal to send UCCs of the relevant nature with individuals so registered in any member nation;

4. URGES member nations to extend such laws to the sending of UCCs to individuals similarly registered in non-member nations, as may seem appropriate to them;

5. CREATES the UN Registrar's Office to assist in querying and collating national registers and relevant national laws across national borders;

6. ENCOURAGES non-member nations to take similar steps, and authorises the UN Registrar's Office to offer their services to any nation enacting similar laws, at their discretion;

7. EMPHASISES that the laws applicable to the sender of UCCs are those of the nation in which the act of sending occurred.

"We are regretfully aware that this proposal will not solve all problems relating to spam, junk mail and telesales, and are considering adding wording to urge non-member nations to participate in this scheme also. We look forward to constructive criticism on this and many other topics."

----
Rhodri Mawr, Prince of Segontium, Master of the Red Hounds, and Ambassador to the UN for the Principalities of Gobbannium.

So... um... how does this "reduce income inequality" or "increase basic welfare"?

Our first instinct naturally was to classify this as a Human Rights proposal, but on subsequent reflection, and after discussing the matter with a few others, we concluded that the effects were nearer to those of the Social Justice category.

Consider for a moment that the primary victim of this proposal is industry and commerce, which suffer from essentially a prohibition of direct marketing that has not been explicitly countenanced by the recipient. The Human Rights category takes no account of that state of affairs, as we understand it, and we thought it unreasonable to assume that there would be no affect on industry. Further, there is a somewhat tortuous argument that this does affect social welfare in as much as it promotes individual well-being by reducing the stress levels induced by saturation advertising.

We are not wedded to this concept, but think it worthy of pondering. In particular, we feel it demonstrates the need for a category that more generally and sensitively allows for the moral growth of industry where the Advancement category tends solely to its economic needs.

Hate to burst your bubble here, but you're supposed to write to the category. You can't just write any old square-peg proposal and then try to cram it into a round-hole category afterward. It doesn't work that way.

Well I support the abolition of commercial anything, so you've got my vote.

3. CREATES the UN Registrar's Office to assist in querying and collating national registers and relevant national laws across national borders..



So now the UN will be the place to go to get list of who you can send spam to. Makes it easy to have these things all in one place.


Spammama Buncha,
CEO, National Society for Information
Cavirra Radio and Televission Systems

Hate to burst your bubble here, but you're supposed to write to the category. You can't just write any old square-peg proposal and then try to cram it into a round-hole category afterward. It doesn't work that way.

OOC: quite true, I'm just exploring possibilities. And I can't figure out how to keep this side of the conversation IC any more :-/ In many ways it feels like it fits the concept of social justice better, but (like Tort Reform) the category and the words don't entirely match. Human Rights it is, then, and we'll just have to imagine that people will roleplay the resulting restrictions of industry.

So now the UN will be the place to go to get list of who you can send spam to. Makes it easy to have these things all in one place.

IC: On the contrary, honoured ambassador, the UN would become the place to go to get the list of who you can't send spam to. The proposed registers are of those who have opted out of receiving unsolicited personally-directed commercial communications.

Honoured Ambassador

The Logopian Government applauds your effort to tackle the problem of unsolicited commercial communication and shares your concern with this issue. However, we do not agree in full with your proposal. Allow me to elaborate.

The resolution does not address the issue of unsolicited communication that is not commercial in nature. We believe religious, political or personal communications should be subject to the same laws and regulations that commercial communications are. We therefore believe the propsal should be broader in scope.

We believe governments should be able to send unsolicited communications to anyone within their juristiction whenever they deem necesary. We note that there are forms of government in wich this communications can be commercial in nature.

We believe private entities have the right to send unsolicited communications to other entities who reside in the same country and who have not specificaly requested not to be sent unsolicited communications; provided that:

there is reason enough to believe the receiving party will be genuinly interested in the message,

Or

there is a prior relationship between the parties that suggests the recipient's interest in the sent communication.

Therefore, we cannot agree with 2.b in its current form.

The Logopian Government does believe in the right of individuals not to be disturbed by unsolicited commercial communications. However, we also believe that sovereign nations should be able to address this issue as they best see fit. We do not believe a "do not call" registry will be right solution to every nation, and we dont believe the UN should force nations to carry the burden of mantaining such registry. Therefore, we cannot agree with 2.a in its current form.


Iris Fairchild
Logopian Ambassador to The UN

We, in Cobdenia, have a far better solution to Junk mail then any UN resolution could possibly have:

http://upload6.postimage.org/517834/IMAGE_045.jpg (http://upload6.postimage.org/517834/photo_hosting.html)

We call it rule .303...

On more careful consideration, we believe we understand what Ambassador Fairchild wishes us to do.

The resolution does not address the issue of unsolicited communication that is not commercial in nature. We believe religious, political or personal communications should be subject to the same laws and regulations that commercial communications are. We therefore believe the propsal should be broader in scope.
We respectfully disagree. One could argue that commercial and religious communications are similar in the regard that both are selling you something, but there is sufficient qualitative difference, we feel, to merit separating the cases.

Political communication is clearly different; good governance in a democracy is highly dependent on communications between political groups and the public, especially at times when elections are not on the horizon, and damaging those means of communications would seem to be a backwards step we find highly undesirable.

Finally, personal communications are clearly different again. We cannot conceive of any reason for globally banning such that does not more properly lie in the province of laws of personal behaviour, and as such it would appear a very poor subject for the UN to be legislating on.

We believe governments should be able to send unsolicited communications to anyone within their juristiction whenever they deem necesary. We note that there are forms of government in wich this communications can be commercial in nature.
If the honoured ambassador would care to elucidate this remark we would be most grateful. We are currently unable to think of any such cases.

We believe private entities have the right to send unsolicited communications to other entities who reside in the same country and who have not specificaly requested not to be sent unsolicited communications; provided that:

there is reason enough to believe the receiving party will be genuinly interested in the message,

Or

there is a prior relationship between the parties that suggests the recipient's interest in the sent communication.
We most emphatically do not believe this to be desirable, for a number of reasons.

The phrase "private entities" is a curious one, appearing to encompass both individual persons and companies which are not publicly quoted. We are uncertain which the honoured ambassador wished us to consider, but in both cases the outcome would appear to be self-defeating. Since our objections above still apply in the case that individuals are affected, we will concentrate on businesses instead.

In this case, what is being proposed is considerably more restrictive than our suggestion. Under this, a business could send unsolicited messages only to those in its own nation (presuming all multinational organisations to be publicly quoted, we note) who have not registered to avoid such communications and who have a potential interest or a prior connection. Gobbannium is not an industry-friendly nation, but even we think this a little much, not to mention far too rich a ground for lawyers. We further note that it is a very straightforward matter for a prior connection to be used to make communications effectively solicited, so we see no need for such an exemption in any case.

The Logopian Government does believe in the right of individuals not to be disturbed by unsolicited commercial communications. However, we also believe that sovereign nations should be able to address this issue as they best see fit. We do not believe a "do not call" registry will be right solution to every nation, and we dont believe the UN should force nations to carry the burden of mantaining such registry. Therefore, we cannot agree with 2.a in its current form.
We see only two other manners in which effective international legislation can be framed; either for nations to maintain "do call" registries, or for a total ban on unsolicited commercial communications. Bear in mind that this is a truly international problem. Companies do have entirely legitimate reasons for wishing to advertise their services outside their home nation, so a blanket ban on cross-border communications would seem to be not an appropriate solution. Given that, there must be some means of querying who can and cannot legally be sent unsolicited communications, and failing to achieve a degree of standardisation of such a mechanism would amount to a far greater burden than the one you suggest.

*picks up phone*

MOMMY! Gobannium's trying to block my spam!

*hangs up phone*

Opposed. Purely because I can be.

~Dr. Jules Hodz

I'm not understanding why we need a committee here. Also, you need a definition or two.

why dont we just ban commercial advertisement.

why dont we just ban commercial advertisement.

Because the business-people have to live, too. There's a lot of free stuff that is free only because it has advertisement in in.

Opposed. Purely because I can be.
We rather suspected that you might, Dr Hodz. None the less, we would like to thank you for giving us the original idea.

I'm not understanding why we need a committee here. Also, you need a definition or two.

We were hoping to avoid definitions, but if the honoured ambassador would care to specify what we should expand on we will certainly consider it.

As to the registrar, in the strictest sense one is not necessary. This is, however, one of those cases where the provision of a coordinating body significantly reduces the overheads for national organisations. Each organisation that wishes to send personally-directed advertising will be wishing to contact the registration body of each nation it wishes to send within. That is potentially a very large number of communications, growing potentially combinatorially with the numbers of nations and senders involved. The provision of a body which collates the necessary information anyway reduces the number of communications to merely linear growth.

Obviously a single company wishing to advertise within its own country would have no particular use for the UN Registrar when their national registrar will be closer and more convenient. For those cases which extend across multiple national borders, however, it will be a dramatic assistance.

We rather suspected that you might, Dr Hodz. None the less, we would like to thank you for giving us the original idea.

OOC: o_O What?

The Plutonian ambassador wanders into the hall.

"Yeah..." he drones. "This is a good idea...and I'm for it...and stuff. But it would, like, be bad, for, y'know, the corporations? 'Cuz they'd, kinda, not be able to spam people as much-which is a good thing-but, anyhow...It could, like, hurt the profits of big business, which is good, kinda cutting them down to size, ya know? So, it, like, pushes the top down." He nods as if getting to the point. "Makes the income of the big corporate businesses...less. So that, like, reduces income inequality."

The ambassador had heard that the majority of the world was not at his intellectual level, and he might have to "dumb himself down" to communicate with them.

That strategy was not necessarily functioning.

OOC: o_O What?

OOC: It was a throwaway remark you made during the discussion of repealing Stop Privacy Intrusion. You responded to a rather dim comment from Commonalitarianism at the foot of this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12567175&postcount=44), and I was inspired at the foot of this one. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12567724&postcount=45) So it's all your fault :-)

"Yeah..." he drones. "This is a good idea...and I'm for it...and stuff. But it would, like, be bad, for, y'know, the corporations? 'Cuz they'd, kinda, not be able to spam people as much-which is a good thing-but, anyhow...It could, like, hurt the profits of big business, which is good, kinda cutting them down to size, ya know? So, it, like, pushes the top down." He nods as if getting to the point. "Makes the income of the big corporate businesses...less. So that, like, reduces income inequality."

Um. Yes. Thank you for that contribution, ambassador. We did indeed have the effect of "imposing restrictions on what businesses and industries may do" in mind, if we may quote from the explanatory text surrounding the Social Justice category. That said, our primary concern is to deal with the unwanted intrusion rather than to reduce income inequality, to the latter of which we think this particular proposal but marginally suited.

OOC: It was a throwaway remark you made during the discussion of repealing Stop Privacy Intrusion. You responded to a rather dim comment from Commonalitarianism at the foot of this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12567175&postcount=44), and I was inspired at the foot of this one. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12567724&postcount=45) So it's all your fault :-)


Aww. :(

Something is seriously wrong with the UN if we have to consider regulating spam and junk mail just so we have something to talk about. :rolleyes:

Highly Esteemed Ambassador from Gobannium

We thank you for taking the time to send a such a well thought and lenghty response to our position. We are certain the healthy debate in this floor will result in a strong and effective resolution. We sincerely hope you are of the same opinion.

Considering the excelent points you make, we would like to reconsider and clarify some aspects of our position.


1-We believe governments or government sanctioned entities have the right to send unsolicited communications to anyone within their jurisdiction; since, presumably, these communications would be sent in favor of national or public interests. When governments own commercial entities (Take Logopian National Railway Service, wich is owned and operated by the Logopian Government) the communications they send can be, and often are, commercial in nature.

2-We believe sovereign states have the right to outlaw any or all forms of unsolicited communications as they see fit to their particular interests. We further believe this right must be respected by the international community.

3-We still belive laws aimed at solving the problem of unsolicited communications should treat all communications equally, regardless of their content or origin (with the exception of point 1). Logopian law forbids, for instance, the sending of unsolicited religious or political propaganda by electronic means(unless covered by the exceptions in point 4). We would like a UN resolution that could prevent unsolicited religious or political propaganda from other states

4-We believe private entities should always have the right to send unsolicited communications to anyone, provided that:

a.The receiving party resides in countries where said unsolicited communication is not illegal
b.The receiving party has not specificaly requested not to be sent unsolicited communications from the sending party.
c.There are compelling reasons to believe the receiving party will be genuinly interested in the message,

5-We understand and agree; a "do not call" registry is indeed a good, and probably the best, solution to the problem of unsolicited communications.

The Logopian Government would, without question, vote for a proposal that mandates registries in member states, as long as points 1 and 2 are addressed.

We understand and respect differences in opinion about points 3, 4 and 5. As such, we would be most honoured to receive your opinion on those matters, should you care to furthe elaborate.

Finally, we would like to state that We would be most interested in contributing, by whatever means are within our reach, to the passing of a proposal that also addressed points 3, 4 and 5.



Iris Fairchild
Logopian Ambassador to the U.N.

1-We believe governments or government sanctioned entities have the right to send unsolicited communications to anyone within their jurisdiction; since, presumably, these communications would be sent in favor of national or public interests.

Hooray! This means I can spam mercilessly again!

Unless anyone has any objections...

*glares around the room*

~Dr. Jules Hodz

Hooray! This means I can spam mercilessly again!

Unless anyone has any objections...

*glares around the room*

~Dr. Jules Hodz

If by I you mean the Government of Akimonad, then yes we firmly believe you have every right to mercilessly spam your citizens. And we further believe the U.N. has no reason whatsoever to deny you of that right

1-We believe governments or government sanctioned entities have the right to send unsolicited communications to anyone within their jurisdiction; since, presumably, these communications would be sent in favor of national or public interests. When governments own commercial entities (Take Logopian National Railway Service, wich is owned and operated by the Logopian Government) the communications they send can be, and often are, commercial in nature.
Ah, we see the nature of your point. Unfortunately, we fear we must disagree.

We entirely concur that governments should not be denied communication paths with their citizenry. Information flow is vital to good governance in our opinion, and we would not wish to see it compromised.

The issue of government-owned or -sponsored companies is however quite different. Their only reason for communications with the general public is advertising for the services that they provide, and in that we see no reason why they should be distinguished from their private-sector colleagues. While we fully trust that the Logopian National Railway Service is an excellent organisation, we cannot accept that it has a better right to unsolicited contact with the public than a private company such as Mana-Machine Interfaces Ltd.

2-We believe sovereign states have the right to outlaw any or all forms of unsolicited communications as they see fit to their particular interests. We further believe this right must be respected by the international community.
We again concur with your first statement of belief, but given our previously explored differences we would feel extremely uncomfortable in supporting the second in a blanket manner. While we hope that nations would take example from the limited prohibition we propose to negotiate reasonable cross-border legal harmonisations, we can think of far too many situations in which we as a nation would find ourselves forced to take actions that we would vehemently oppose as a result of such. In addition, the further right you expound seems somewhat at odds with the first, once you consider it from the point of view of other members of the international community.

This is a primary reason for our somewhat narrow focus. Let us concern ourselves with matters on which we can agree before moving on to more delicate negotiations.

3-We still belive laws aimed at solving the problem of unsolicited communications should treat all communications equally, regardless of their content or origin (with the exception of point 1). Logopian law forbids, for instance, the sending of unsolicited religious or political propaganda by electronic means(unless covered by the exceptions in point 4). We would like a UN resolution that could prevent unsolicited religious or political propaganda from other states
As we have stated before, we don't believe this, and find it difficult to reconcile the underlying philosophy with that of your first point. We certainly believe what our technical advisor refers to as 'unicast' communications should be treated equally with regard to the medium, but consider the nature of the message to be something that must be considered more carefully. Specifically, we note that commercial messages are of an inherently different nature to religious, political or personal ones.

That said, this proposal would not block any subsequent legislation seeking the bans you would prefer. We do not support such, but we will not bar that path to you.

4-We believe private entities should always have the right to send unsolicited communications to anyone, provided that:

a.The receiving party resides in countries where said unsolicited communication is not illegal
b.The receiving party has not specificaly requested not to be sent unsolicited communications from the sending party.
c.There are compelling reasons to believe the receiving party will be genuinly interested in the message,
Still lacking a clear definition of 'private entities', we cannot pass much sensible comment on this. We do, however, blanch at the thought of maintaining the lists of entities forbidden to send unsolicited communications to specific entities. Even our love of bureaucracy baulks at such a potentially massive undertaking. We further observe that you are in some danger of attempting to write other nations' laws here, which makes somewhat dubious that this is the correct path in any case.

Well I support the abolition of commercial anything, so you've got my vote.

Well, there's nothing like a perfectly logical reason for a position, is there?

I'm not understanding why we need a committee here. Also, you need a definition or two.

I'm not understanding why we need a resolution.

Something is seriously wrong with the UN if we have to consider regulating spam and junk mail just so we have something to talk about. :rolleyes:

I think I like this nation...

Ailyn Vel (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/images/Ailyn.jpg)
New Vandalian Ambassador to the UN

The People's Republic Of Midgardent's Government proposes to edit some parts of the legislation at draft, and the proposal goes as follows:

The government of Midgardent, whose work lays upon democracy, socialism, equality, liberty and justice, considers the categorization of this draft a mistake, and thus, promotes the change of category of the law from "Social Justice", to "Human Rights", and the arguments presented are:

1.-Social justice is a political concept referring to "a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the common benefits".

2.-Unsolicited Commercial Communication represents an invasion of the right to privacy, and even if Gobbannium's representative has stated that the effects are nearer to "Social Justice" because it directly affects industry and commerce, this effect is not what will make the categorization, but the cause itself: defending a right. May the defense of a right be the cause of a legislation, but the effects of this defense do not concern this topic; for example, considering what Gobbannium's representative considered to be the effects -reducing stress levels and thus increasing individual well-being-, this well-being state is precisely the key of the goal of Human Rights: to protect it; however, we know that doing a change in Human Rights, we can benefit Social Justice and even more categories get a benefit, but that doesn't mean the change laid upon Social Justice or upon the other categories involved, because the last are just the effects; so, to the Government of Midgardent, it doesn't matter if an addition of Human Rights made a change of Social Justice, still the decree that made this change, was applied directly to Human Rights.

3.-As The Peoples's Republic of Midgardent's Government have to emphasize, the category "Human Rights" lays upon the defense of these, and as we have noticed, privacy is a right, so its defense is well defined as a priority of the statements belonging to this category.

Therefore, the conclusion, as portrayed by The People's Republic Of Midgardent's Government is:

It doesn't matter if a decree or legislation designed to improve the application of a right had affected other subjects of the well-being, still the inspiration and the bases, the founding arguments, are those rights being improved. And social justice may be the effect of improving a right, but it was not the cause itself.

I'm not understanding why we need a resolution.

Our apologies, my lady, we had assumed that the brief remarks in the preamble to the proposal would be sufficient. Since your remark makes it evident that this is not so, we will expand upon those points.

Unsolicited communications, whether in the form of junk mail, cold calls, electronic spam or whatever, are a significant nuisance to modern living. Simply taking the time to deal with such, even with the best of filters on one's email, consumes a small but repeated proportion of one's working and private lives, breaks trains of thoughts in the case of telephone calls, and contributes unnecessarily to personal stress levels. In addition, it consumes vast quantities of resources -- of the order of half the postage delivered in an average nation will turn out to be unsolicited advertising, and the proportions for electronic mail are worse due to the simplicity and cheapness of the process. Clearly, there is a problem which needs to be addressed.

The reason the UN is an appropriate body to address that problem lies with the facility of international communications in these times. We can send a message from our offices in Dinas Segontium to Ambassador Fairchild's offices in Logopia and be reasonably assured that not only will the message arrive, it will do so in minutes. Nations enacting their own laws concerning the banning of cold-calling telesales techniques in particular have discovered that without the cooperation of other nations, from whom calls can be made every bit as easily if at slightly greater expense than locally, it is impossible to make an effectual ban. Companies simply relocate their Unsolicited Sales teams to nations from which they can send their spam messages with impunity.

Attempts to enforce spam-removal at a local level by insisting that service providers and network node maintainers fail for two reasons; first, they would have to examine each message, thereby breaching the privacy normally accorded to personal communications as a matter of course, something we personally find unacceptable as of right. Those who have different views of individual's rights may wish to consider the implications of their diplomatic or commercially sensitive communications becoming effectively public, or the more obviously unacceptable nature of listening into telephone conversations and opening post that would be required to implement similar measures for the prevention of telesales and junk mail.

The second reason is the intolerable additional resource needed to identify spam without losing valid electronic mail, all of which falls to the aforementioned service providers. This will inevitably require significant additional costs for them if service is to be maintained. It seems to us to be against natural justice to thus punish them for a problem not of their making.

Thus we find ourselves in a situation where international co-operation is required to deal with a problem one might have assumed was merely national in scope. The United Nations is a body which is capable of achieving international co-operation, and more to the point international co-operative law-making, in many areas. We will not insult fellow delegates by completing the obvious syllogism in detail.

Micromanaging away every little perceived annoyance through international legislation and the yapping aimed at doing so are much more significant nuisances.

Ailyn Vel (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/images/Ailyn.jpg)
New Vandalian Ambassador to the UN

While tart one-liners that purport to profer wisdom while evading any process of reason are satisfying to deliver, we are of the opinion that they add little to any rational discussion.

While tart one-liners that purport to profer wisdom while evading any process of reason are satisfying to deliver, we are of the opinion that they add little to any rational discussion.

Who you calling a tart?!?!

Our apologies, my lady, we had assumed that the brief remarks in the preamble to the proposal would be sufficient. Since your remark makes it evident that this is not so, we will expand upon those points.

Unsolicited communications, whether in the form of junk mail, cold calls, electronic spam or whatever, are a significant nuisance to modern living. Simply taking the time to deal with such, even with the best of filters on one's email, consumes a small but repeated proportion of one's working and private lives, breaks trains of thoughts in the case of telephone calls, and contributes unnecessarily to personal stress levels. In addition, it consumes vast quantities of resources -- of the order of half the postage delivered in an average nation will turn out to be unsolicited advertising, and the proportions for electronic mail are worse due to the simplicity and cheapness of the process. Clearly, there is a problem which needs to be addressed.

The reason the UN is an appropriate body to address that problem lies with the facility of international communications in these times. We can send a message from our offices in Dinas Segontium to Ambassador Fairchild's offices in Logopia and be reasonably assured that not only will the message arrive, it will do so in minutes. Nations enacting their own laws concerning the banning of cold-calling telesales techniques in particular have discovered that without the cooperation of other nations, from whom calls can be made every bit as easily if at slightly greater expense than locally, it is impossible to make an effectual ban. Companies simply relocate their Unsolicited Sales teams to nations from which they can send their spam messages with impunity.

Attempts to enforce spam-removal at a local level by insisting that service providers and network node maintainers fail for two reasons; first, they would have to examine each message, thereby breaching the privacy normally accorded to personal communications as a matter of course, something we personally find unacceptable as of right. Those who have different views of individual's rights may wish to consider the implications of their diplomatic or commercially sensitive communications becoming effectively public, or the more obviously unacceptable nature of listening into telephone conversations and opening post that would be required to implement similar measures for the prevention of telesales and junk mail.

The second reason is the intolerable additional resource needed to identify spam without losing valid electronic mail, all of which falls to the aforementioned service providers. This will inevitably require significant additional costs for them if service is to be maintained. It seems to us to be against natural justice to thus punish them for a problem not of their making.

Thus we find ourselves in a situation where international co-operation is required to deal with a problem one might have assumed was merely national in scope. The United Nations is a body which is capable of achieving international co-operation, and more to the point international co-operative law-making, in many areas. We will not insult fellow delegates by completing the obvious syllogism in detail.Right. Aside from Madame Vel's (wholly valid) points, you still are missing one little thing in this proposed War on Petty Annoyances: an applicable category. I don't think you've provided one to anyone's satisfaction yet.

~Cdr. Chiang

My appologies for intruding on this, I am myself but newly included into the United Nations, and I have myself no power to enact above others, but I still would like to raise two objections.

b. enact laws making it illegal to make unsolicited commercial communications of the relevant nature with individuals so registered in any member nation;

How far exactly could this be brought? As much as I see this, I cannot see any real solution... thanks to this very point.

While the nation have the right to determine the full extend of the laws, this poses a real question; to what country is the rule to be abided, in the event of an actual instance of illigal unsolicited commercial communication? Is it the location of the reciever, or the origin of the company head quarters? It is to be imagined to be the former, but this poses an important question to the above quated part of the drafted solution:

How harsh will these laws be, and what methods will the United Nations use in order to uphold these individual government laws?

I am not fully sure if these questions have been materialized in former UN resolutions, but I can see a scenario due to the following:

A citizen lives in a nation. This nation has the sentence of 'swift beheading to all heads of government' (no pun intended) for the crime of unsolicted commercial comunication. The Citizen uses the modern mass media communication means, the internet to take an example, and recieves a mail from a corporation that goes under the UCC act. The citizen, obiding the rules set by the nation, then submits it as evidence ageanst the corporation. If I see this correctly, it would mean that the nation where the coorporation are quartered would be required, by the UN, to send the heads of corporation to the former mentioned nation for execution?

I most certainly do not hope that this is a possible outcome of this draft, and I feel that the responsibility and area of effect should be taken into account. I feel that the mass media being involved will mean that the nation should, in fact, not have the actual power to enact the laws possible through this mean. With this, I must suggest that the Internet, as well as other networks such as telephone cables and similar, be treated as international and, hence, out of touch from individual nations. At least in similar cases as this.

Also, what if the reciever intended to get the coorporation in trouble? Or another coorporation sending spam mail to a 'beheading state' to dominate the market? There should be countermessures for such.

That was the first objection, and here's the other:

While it is true that 'spam' and 'junk mail' are truely the most known sinners, where exactly does this stop? In my eyes, unsolicited commercial communications can cover quite a broad array of areas, and if implanted, could seriously cripple all economies in all UN countries. With this I mean that the UCC act could potentially (and evidently by the vert name) also cover the use of comercials, be it virtual or physical.

While it is agreeable that spam and junkmail will go under the act, there are other instances that might also, to name a few:

- Television Break Commercials and similar: An Unsolicited Commercial Commuication, unless the user manually agrees to the use of UCC-breaches when signing up for access to the individual channels. I fear that the retroscopic use of this will mean alot of trouble with television rights over the time after implantation.

- Brand name and Symbol in public: A glance of an eye over a brand name or symbol is in itself not only unsolicited (as you cannot agree on this anymore than looking at a SPAM message), but also commercial (as the brand name prosers at the spreading of the brand) AND a communication, thus falling under the UCC act. If the law passes, then the mare mentioning of a corporation name, and the use of corporation logos on, for instance, shoes, caps, stadium banners, actual products (that define the brand), and others will be forced to be banned and removed. This act alone would criple the infrastructure as it is today. Not to mention civil rights.

- Online Banner usage: While clearly a breach on the proposed UCC act, these banners are often all the site authors have between having the website staying up and closing it down, will be illigalised. As of such, this would mean that a large part of all internet sociaties would close down, which would further mean that the use of the internet, as through free speach, will be seriously impaired. Political freedom and civil rights will drop to the floor, as one of the largest use of mass media for the individual will flanter.


And so on. The full extend on this proposed, be it for commercial or propeganda use, is unimportant compared to the above mentioned issues. Although if religious profiling would also go under the act of unsolicited communication, then it would potentially bar as a ban for showing religious symbols in public. Something that is of a diffrent issue. Therefore, I suggest some possible changes:




(2.b be edited out)

4. The act does not include areas of:

a. Individualised (in the sence of not be mechanised, and adressing the individual) messages are to be excluded,

b. Messages passed through a third-party organ, in the likes of websides, or television channels,

c. Messages that are used as part of a resource.

5. The terms of the penlization of corporations be managed by a UN body, who:

a. Enforce the rules on all member nations,

b. Demand the individual nations assistance in carrying out the sentences,

c. Provide evidence of the deed for a court before sentencing.



As a mare proposal.

Right. Aside from Madame Vel's (wholly valid) points, you still are missing one little thing in this proposed War on Petty Annoyances: an applicable category. I don't think you've provided one to anyone's satisfaction yet.
We believe we have addressed Mme Vel's points; certainly she has not thus far offered a reasoned objection to the position we expanded upon. As to the category, given that there is an objection to observing that the effects of the Social Justice category are the correct ones, clearly the words of the Human Rights category are applicable, however incorrect we may feel the meta-gaming effects to be.

My appologies for intruding on this, I am myself but newly included into the United Nations, and I have myself no power to enact above others, but I still would like to raise two objections.

b. enact laws making it illegal to make unsolicited commercial communications of the relevant nature with individuals so registered in any member nation;

How far exactly could this be brought? As much as I see this, I cannot see any real solution... thanks to this very point.

While the nation have the right to determine the full extend of the laws, this poses a real question; to what country is the rule to be abided, in the event of an actual instance of illigal unsolicited commercial communication? Is it the location of the reciever, or the origin of the company head quarters? It is to be imagined to be the former, but this poses an important question to the above quated part of the drafted solution:

How harsh will these laws be, and what methods will the United Nations use in order to uphold these individual government laws?

We thank the honoured ambassador of Mikkeroonia for his thoughtful contribution to this debate, and take this opportunity to welcome him to these chambers.

We believe that the general legal principle involved is that the laws which should apply are the ones in effect in the location in which the act is committed. In this case, that would be the laws applying in the nation from which the letter or email was sent, or the telephone call dialled, or whatever communications medium may be employed was initiated. To suppose that the law of the recipient's nation applies would be to set a very dangerous precedent that would, if generally accepted, effectively destroy the notion of national sovereignty, something we have absolutely no desire to do. Your example fully shows the folly of such a course of action.

This is why we phrased clause 2b to make the act of sending unsolicited communications illegal; this cuts through the legalities of extradition and potential sovereignty infringements. Further, it permits nations to decide for themselves exactly how harsh such laws should be, and leaves the enforcement of such laws to them. The UN should not be attempting to micromanage such things.

For the avoidance of doubt, we would be happy to include words to this effect in our next draft.

While it is true that 'spam' and 'junk mail' are truely the most known sinners, where exactly does this stop? In my eyes, unsolicited commercial communications can cover quite a broad array of areas, and if implanted, could seriously cripple all economies in all UN countries. With this I mean that the UCC act could potentially (and evidently by the vert name) also cover the use of comercials, be it virtual or physical.

We thank the honoured ambassador for pointing out our error. It had been our intention that the categories enumerated in clause 2a should all be explicitly personally-directed as in the preamble, thus placing general broadcast commercial advertising outside the remit of this proposal. We shall rectify that omission in our redraft.

Therefore, I suggest some possible changes:

(2.b be edited out)
We hope that we have demonstrated why we believe this to be unnecessary.

4. The act does not include areas of:

a. Individualised (in the sence of not be mechanised, and adressing the individual) messages are to be excluded,

b. Messages passed through a third-party organ, in the likes of websides, or television channels,

c. Messages that are used as part of a resource.
We believe that a suitably careful definition of "personally-directed" will encompass these points, such as they should be covered.

5. The terms of the penlization of corporations be managed by a UN body, who:

a. Enforce the rules on all member nations,

b. Demand the individual nations assistance in carrying out the sentences,

c. Provide evidence of the deed for a court before sentencing.
We believe this is unacceptable micromanaging of national laws, and in any case in direct contravention of a number of UN resolutions. Most obviously, "managing the terms of penalisation" would seem to infringe upon the rights guaranteed by the Fair Sentencing Act for nations to detemine their own penalties free of UN coercion.

Again, another proposal that denies "free will" of nations in regards to its internal affairs. However, if it is limited to "external communications, Minilla Island will accept it.

To Gobbannium:

The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, firmly insists the categorization of the issue being drafted must be changed to Human Rights, or otherwise debate should be brought; Midgardent's Government has stated a full argument against the current categorization, however, no response was brought at it, and, since one of the main principles of legislation is debate, Midgarden'ts Government, remarks, that debate is needed where argument is stated.

The argument to change the categorization, as presented by The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, may be found at the post numbered 26, in the second page of the discussion of this draft. Midgardent's Government again demands a response.

Again, another proposal that denies "free will" of nations in regards to its internal affairs. However, if it is limited to "external communications, Minilla Island will accept it.
Again, another response that invokes National Sovereignty without the intervention of rational thought. We wish delegates would not do this; we find it prejudices us against much more reasonable sovereignty arguments.

To Gobbannium:

The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, firmly insists the categorization of the issue being drafted must be changed to Human Rights, or otherwise debate should be brought; Midgardent's Government has stated a full argument against the current categorization, however, no response was brought at it, and, since one of the main principles of legislation is debate, Midgarden'ts Government, remarks, that debate is needed where argument is stated.

The argument to change the categorization, as presented by The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, may be found at the post numbered 26, in the second page of the discussion of this draft. Midgardent's Government again demands a response.

If the Midgardent delegate wishes a response to his remarks, he should possibly investigate the response we made to the much more concise remarks from the Kennyite delegation some considerable while ago. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12899085&postcount=7) If he wishes a personal response, he should stop demanding lest he be thought rude and boorish.

We believe we have addressed Mme Vel's points; certainly she has not thus far offered a reasoned objection to the position we expanded upon.

I thought I was pretty clear. There is no need for international legislation to address every one of your petty annoyances. I'm sorry if that's not "reasoned" enough for you, but I don't feel the need to waste this body's time with a lot of useless verbiage aimed at "proving" my intelligence. I'm not in the business of overcompensating for a lack of...well, you know...

Ailyn Vel (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/images/Ailyn.jpg)
New Vandalian Ambassador to the UN

Again, another response that invokes National Sovereignty without the intervention of rational thought. We wish delegates would not do this; we find it prejudices us against much more reasonable sovereignty arguments.



If the Midgardent delegate wishes a response to his remarks, he should possibly investigate the response we made to the much more concise remarks from the Kennyite delegation some considerable while ago. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12899085&postcount=7) If he wishes a personal response, he should stop demanding lest he be thought rude and boorish.

"I'm sorry but even if you pass this legislation, what will stop non UN Member Nations from filling up my people with Spam Mail and Spam E-Mail? This piece of UN Legislation is completely and utterly useless in not only the eyes of the people of the Shazbotdom Empire, but the Supreme Emperor's eyes, and his Cabinet."

Mr. Kennith Rudenbaker
Newly Appointed
Shazbotdom Representitive to the United Nations.

"I'm sorry but even if you pass this legislation, what will stop non UN Member Nations from filling up my people with Spam Mail and Spam E-Mail?Absolutely nothing, baby! Woo-hoo!


Skip Marsden
Bulk Mailings Corp.; CEO
The Federated Technocratic Oligarchy of the Most Glorious Hack

We believe we have addressed Mme Vel's points; certainly she has not thus far offered a reasoned objection to the position we expanded upon. As to the category, given that there is an objection to observing that the effects of the Social Justice category are the correct ones, clearly the words of the Human Rights category are applicable, however incorrect we may feel the meta-gaming effects to be.OK, so how does a proposal that simply reduces economic freedoms and uphold some imaginary right not to be annoyed "improve worldwide human and civil rights"? It can't be right to privacy, because that shields you from government intrusion, not intrusion by private individuals and companies who legally obtain personal information about consumers, in many cases directly from the consumer being bothered.

I would suggest that, as this proposal would limit the spammer's actions on the ground that many people considered them to be "wrong", the correct category should in fact be 'Moral Decency'...

Sigh...

Look, I've said it before, but luckily I never needed to. Fris already has said it before, on multiple occasions:

"Write your proposal to the Category, not the other way around." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12859446&postcount=8)


"Being that the game limits your choices to the defined categories, you need to write to the category rather than trying to shoehorn a square peg into a round hole." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12500995&postcount=8)


"If you don't write your proposal to fit a category, it's not adequate to just point it at something and say, "well, that's sorta close"." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12441510&postcount=31)


"If you don't write TO the category, your proposal will probably not survive mod review." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12056547&postcount=15)


"I've repeated the point over and over that proposals must be written with the category in mind, not vice versa. ... I'll repeat (one MORE time): "Write your proposal TO the category, not vice-versa."" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11798351&postcount=15)


"START with a category and an idea, then write the proposal to fit the category. If you try to shoehorn it in afterwards, it almost always fails." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11296324&postcount=12)


"Also, start with your chosen category and write the proposal to fit, instead of looking afterwards and trying to shoehorn a size-12 proposal into a size-8 category. It doesn't work." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8033860&postcount=11)

If the Midgardent delegate wishes a response to his remarks, he should possibly investigate the response we made to the much more concise remarks from the Kennyite delegation some considerable while ago. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12899085&postcount=7) If he wishes a personal response, he should stop demanding lest he be thought rude and boorish.

The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, to Gobbanium and to the world, writes:

Gobbanium, we have read and understood all the responses you have posted against the categorization change, and still, we don't find a precise and concise argument that justifies your election of Social Justice.

Wether you consider the remarks of the Kennyite delegation more concise than those we present to you, or not, still that doesn't credit your response as being well selected; and as we have evaluated, you are not being reasonable, and overall, you seem more like a representative, whose unwillingness to debate contradicts himself and what he stated in his first post.

We did demand a response by you -not personal, but public, or otherwise we could have tried to private mail you-, because by the simple fact of posting your proposal, you accept an open debate; and if you still won't be willing to discuss this important point, then you nullify every argument you give favoring reason.

You say we should stop demanding you a response, lest be thought rude and borish; and we respond you in this way: you're the one who stated that, so if you think one who demands a response within a debate would be considered like that, then obviously you are against discussion.

What we are trying, is to get a categorization change, because without enough argument from your part other than: this was discussed "some considerable while ago", or "this other nation got a more concise argument", you are not responding concisely.

Gobbannium, if you are not open to discussion, to debate, to ideas exchange, to modification, to change, to constructive critic, and to other methods which lead to reason, then make it clear before you state it in your posts.

On the other hand, if you had really examined the situation and cared about its improvement, you would not have argued with such evasives, and moreover, you would have accepted a real discussion.

If you argue that you have argued enough, then it seems like you don't even have a factual say.

Where, Gobbannium, is your elocuence, after you have made it clear that for you, one who asks for a change can and would be considered rude?

Rude, in other instance, would be that who opposes to any modification, and to quote, i say rude is Gobbannium.

Thank you.
Representative Board, Diplomatic Section, Government of the People's Republic of Midgardent.

The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government writes;

to Omigodtheykilledkenny:

Omigodtheykilledkenny, the right of privacy is not imaginary, as it's a factual right, based on the principle of any right: to assure the well-being of a human who had problems with an invasion to his person.

There are some topics that may seem to involve both Social Justice and Human Rights, for example, slavery; there you find that while outlawing slavery will reduce inequality, and also grant human rights, it also goes by limiting a previously called "economical freedom", the freedom to exploit workers witout a wage; however the law prohibiting slavery is not giving a right by itself, the right given is just an effect; the actual goal of the law is to improve social justice, and Prohibition of Slavery is not your right to "get a prohibition of slavery", it's a limitation for the slave owners, therefore, it's classified as Social Justice, though, when it was stated in the Human Rights Declaration, there was also a debate, but after all, they saw they could not put: "Every human has a right to have slavery prohibited"; a prohibition is not a right, is an obligation to not do something, in order to ensure a right, thus, slavery prohibition is indeed within Social Justice, but the right of privacy, as has been disturbed, exists, or, every other right, would be imaginary.

I thought I was pretty clear. There is no need for international legislation to address every one of your petty annoyances. I'm sorry if that's not "reasoned" enough for you, but I don't feel the need to waste this body's time with a lot of useless verbiage aimed at "proving" my intelligence. I'm not in the business of overcompensating for a lack of...well, you know...
We can assure Ambassador Vel that her visible attributes are certainly not lacking. We had hoped that our previous speech had demonstrated why purely national responses to this not so petty nuisance cannot hope to succeed, and that therefore this was a fit subject for international consideration.

"I'm sorry but even if you pass this legislation, what will stop non UN Member Nations from filling up my people with Spam Mail and Spam E-Mail?
The ambassador is quite correct to observe that this resolution deals only with UN members, although we do intend to add words when we get time to redraft to avoid excluding non-member nations who see advantages to joining such a scheme. That said, preventing the influx of spam from member nations and responsible non-member nations makes the identification of irresponsible non-member nations originating spam much easier, allowing nations to more precisely target their own economic, social and technical solutions. If others do not play nice with you, you are under no obligation to play with them at all, after all.

OK, so how does a proposal that simply reduces economic freedoms and uphold some imaginary right not to be annoyed "improve worldwide human and civil rights"? It can't be right to privacy, because that shields you from government intrusion, not intrusion by private individuals and companies who legally obtain personal information about consumers, in many cases directly from the consumer being bothered.

This is a circular argument: you state that the right to privacy does not apply by defining it narrowly to suit your argument. But why should a right to privacy be only privacy from government? Why should it not be from companies and individuals also? We are sure that most nations take personal non-violent harrassment by an individual quite seriously, certainly when it reaches the level commonly regarded as stalking. Is this not an invocation of that right to personal privacy?

We would further observe that the proposal applies to unsolicited communications. Where companies have obtained personal information about consumers from the consumers themselves, it is a trivial matter for them also to obtain permission to send subsequent advertising should it be deemed acceptable, thus rendering subsequent communications solicited. In effect, we are requiring companies to do the work to more efficiently target their advertising (thereby increasing their return for expenditure) rather than make the false economy of avoiding the work and spending more on blanket advertising that backfires as often as it succeeds.

On the subject of categories, we did initially draft this proposal as a Human Rights resolution, since that was our first impression of the subject matter. Subsequent discussion before the draft was posted here suggested that Social Justice might be a more representative choice, and we chose to take that line in posting the draft. Subsequent to that we have received advice of varying degrees of logic that our first impulse was the correct one and none that our later substitution was valid, and stated our intention to alter the category back to Human Rights in our next revision. As far as we are concerned, further debate on the subject should most properly be directed, as Commander Chiang has, to the question of whether the Human Rights category is a correct one for the draft. We would appreciate if our fellow delegates could restrain themselves from starting more hares running before that is dealt with.

[In the NSUN Nunciate of the Eternal Kawaii, the Nuncia is addressing two nekomusume staff members.]

"I'm a bit confused here. Does this address a problem in our nation? I thought we censored international communications."

"Only for heresy and blasphemy, your grace. Commercial traffic tends to get a free pass."

"And it is a growing problem, your grace. Ever since the previous regime made it legal to shoot door-to-door salesmen, the amount of unsolicited mail has skyrocketed."

"Hmm. Well, I see Prince Rhodri's sponsoring this--the Earth Tiger sent me a good review of him; he's the kind of person we should be keeping on our side. Send a note to the drafting committee: In the Name of the Eternal Kawaii (mtCObp), we fully support this draft proposal. Tell them also that we think it should be a Human Rights one--that should assuage the anti-NatSov crowd a bit."

Sigh...

Look, I've said it before, but luckily I never needed to. Fris already has said it before, on multiple occasions:

"Write your proposal to the Category, not the other way around." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12859446&postcount=8)


"Being that the game limits your choices to the defined categories, you need to write to the category rather than trying to shoehorn a square peg into a round hole." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12500995&postcount=8)

"If you don't write your proposal to fit a category, it's not adequate to just point it at something and say, "well, that's sorta close"." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12441510&postcount=31)

"If you don't write TO the category, your proposal will probably not survive mod review." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12056547&postcount=15)

"I've repeated the point over and over that proposals must be written with the category in mind, not vice versa. ... I'll repeat (one MORE time): "Write your proposal TO the category, not vice-versa."" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11798351&postcount=15)

"START with a category and an idea, then write the proposal to fit the category. If you try to shoehorn it in afterwards, it almost always fails." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11296324&postcount=12)

"Also, start with your chosen category and write the proposal to fit, instead of looking afterwards and trying to shoehorn a size-12 proposal into a size-8 category. It doesn't work." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8033860&postcount=11)

It seems you're talking to a wall. The representative from Gobstopperium clearly isn't paying attention to anything that disagrees with him.

Ailyn Vel (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/images/Ailyn.jpg)
New Vandalian Ambassador to the UN

Sigh...

Look, I've said it before, but luckily I never needed to. Fris already has said it before, on multiple occasions:

"Write your proposal to the Category, not the other way around." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12859446&postcount=8)


"Being that the game limits your choices to the defined categories, you need to write to the category rather than trying to shoehorn a square peg into a round hole." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12500995&postcount=8)


"If you don't write your proposal to fit a category, it's not adequate to just point it at something and say, "well, that's sorta close"." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12441510&postcount=31)


"If you don't write TO the category, your proposal will probably not survive mod review." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12056547&postcount=15)


"I've repeated the point over and over that proposals must be written with the category in mind, not vice versa. ... I'll repeat (one MORE time): "Write your proposal TO the category, not vice-versa."" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11798351&postcount=15)


"START with a category and an idea, then write the proposal to fit the category. If you try to shoehorn it in afterwards, it almost always fails." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11296324&postcount=12)


"Also, start with your chosen category and write the proposal to fit, instead of looking afterwards and trying to shoehorn a size-12 proposal into a size-8 category. It doesn't work." (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=8033860&postcount=11)

OOC: Jeez Kenny, what'd you do, book mark every time Fris has said that?

Absolutely nothing, baby! Woo-hoo!


Skip Marsden
Bulk Mailings Corp.; CEO
The Federated Technocratic Oligarchy of the Most Glorious Hack


OOC:
You crazy son of a mod.....:p

Oh wait...your the mod. *hides*

OOC: Jeez Kenny, what'd you do, book mark every time Fris has said that?Luckily the advanced search engine is one of the few things on this site that actually works. :rolleyes:

Might i suggest that you add a section that determines appropriate times that telemarketers may call. The issue in many cases is that these calls impede daily activities such as meal times. It may seem slightly redundant, but this idea will further protect U.N. nations from telemarketer calls.

It seems you're talking to a wall. The representative from Gobstopperium clearly isn't paying attention to anything that disagrees with him.
Careful, Ambassador Vel, you are beginning to sound a little familiar. We will however make a note to be more explicit in referencing preceding comments when quoting the same would be mere tedious redundancy, for the convenience of those who are having difficulty in following the threads of argument.

Might i suggest that you add a section that determines appropriate times that telemarketers may call. The issue in many cases is that these calls impede daily activities such as meal times. It may seem slightly redundant, but this idea will further protect U.N. nations from telemarketer calls.
We thank the Ambassador of Nightroad for his suggestion. Our instinct is to avoid the issue at present; our primary area of concern is after all those whose registered opinion is that there is never a good time for a telemarketer to call, and we do not wish to unduly provoke nations which seem to believe that having such calls clogging up the communications networks of other nations is a perfectly reasonable thing for them to encourage. We will however take care not to prevent future legislation on the subject if we go with our instincts, and we would like to reassure the ambassador that we aren't rejecting the suggestion out of hand.

IC: On the contrary, honoured ambassador, the UN would become the place to go to get the list of who you can't send spam to. The proposed registers are of those who have opted out of receiving unsolicited personally-directed commercial communications.

Any such a list would have to have all names on it that have either opted to not be contacted or be contacted in order to be complete thus it becomes a central list for spamers to use to get names to send spam to.

As if one sees a name not on list one assumes they have not opted out of getting it.. then one spams them with spam about getting out of getting spam.. as have had several messages.. saying check here to stop spam.. that I consider spam....

Then comes the person who thought they checked no spam and are getting it still who goes to wherever to get it stopped. If it means courts then it ties up legal system that should be dealing with murders and rapist that need a good tall tree and rope not spam....

Spammama Buncha,
CEO, National Society for Information
Cavirra Radio and Televission Systems

I'm not even gonna participate in this one.
But I'm against approval on this proposal, on the pure notion that while I abhor mass commercial communication in the form of spam, I depise frou-frou language and more bureaucracy to combat said abhorration.

P.S.

My new deputy ambassador has just arrived from the Isles. His name, is Jules Winnfield.
Please greet him when he comes in.

Respectfully,
The Honorable Marcus Diegaus III, KCMC, CC
Senior Ambassador
Permanent Representative to the UN
The Royal Federation of the Genoshan Isles

Any such a list would have to have all names on it that have either opted to not be contacted or be contacted in order to be complete thus it becomes a central list for spamers to use to get names to send spam to.
Not so; the list is perfectly complete with only the names of those who have explicitly opted out. The lack of presence of a name on the list is all the information required to deduce that that person has implicitly permitted contact. Thus being "information by omission", there is no central list for spammers to use.

As if one sees a name not on list one assumes they have not opted out of getting it.. then one spams them with spam about getting out of getting spam.. as have had several messages.. saying check here to stop spam.. that I consider spam....

Then comes the person who thought they checked no spam and are getting it still who goes to wherever to get it stopped. If it means courts then it ties up legal system that should be dealing with murders and rapist that need a good tall tree and rope not spam....
We must vigorously disagree that deliberate deception for the purposes of personal gain such as you describe is not a matter for the legal system of any reasonable nation. We would point out again that we are not prescribing the national law that will govern the registration process, merely that there will be such. Beyond that, we are having some severe difficulties in comprehending the point that the honoured ambassador is making.

Nevermind.
That rat-bastard Jules ate my Kahuna Burger.
I'm sending his ass back.

M. Diegaus

Not so; the list is perfectly complete with only the names of those who have explicitly opted out. It is still a list with names on it and how does one decide if they have contacted everyone who might want on the list.... send out more spam for them to get on this or that list. Somebody will have a list of people in order to have a list of folks who don't want it..... where will this master list be help?




We must vigorously disagree that deliberate deception for the purposes of personal gain such as you describe is not a matter for the legal system of any reasonable nation. We would point out again that we are not prescribing the national law that will govern the registration process, merely that there will be such. Beyond that, we are having some severe difficulties in comprehending the point that the honoured ambassador is making.

So if there are no laws to enforce this then how do you get a list to start with? Unless there is something in place to reguire or mandate it then why do we need to do it. If we only have to get a few names on a list to meet this then why have it? Unless it includes everyone then it is useless so why are you even thingking about doing it. Wasting time and funds to manage it when I'm sure the UN can find other things to do with both the time and funds.

Point is any list submitted to the UN that carries the names of citizens of any nation can be abused and if that list is not complete or is complete it become a big problem. This by your own will not be complete as it has no way of insuring that everyone has a chance to get their names on such a list if they choose then has no way for recourse if name is on list and they still get spam...

Nevermind.
That rat-bastard Jules ate my Kahuna Burger.
I'm sending his ass back.

M. Diegaus

That is a tasty burger...

It is still a list with names on it and how does one decide if they have contacted everyone who might want on the list.... send out more spam for them to get on this or that list. Somebody will have a list of people in order to have a list of folks who don't want it..... where will this master list be help?
It may not be held anywhere, because there is no need for it, though individual nations may decide to proceed differently. The honoured delegate errs in believing that active individual contact is required. Our preferred approach, and the one that we as a nation would recommend to others, is to advertise the services in the normal broadcast manner that is not affected by this proposal and let those who want to be on the list contact us. Thus for example every telephone directory carries an advertisment for our Telephone Preference Service, which lists those people who do not desire unsolicited telephone calls. If we were to take the active approach, we would be in the position of spamming people in order to stop them from being spammed, something we think both ethically dubious and practically counter-productive.

So if there are no laws to enforce this then how do you get a list to start with? Unless there is something in place to reguire or mandate it then why do we need to do it. If we only have to get a few names on a list to meet this then why have it? Unless it includes everyone then it is useless so why are you even thingking about doing it. Wasting time and funds to manage it when I'm sure the UN can find other things to do with both the time and funds.
The ambassador misunderstands us. Our proposal precisely requires nations to enact their own laws, and it is those laws which get enforced. It is the business of the nation to enforce those laws; the UN gets involved only to the extent that it can help to pass information between nations as to who the laws need to be enforced against.

Again, we cannot understand why the ambassador is so hung up on the idea that the list must contain the names of every last citizen in member nations. It doesn't. The one and only purpose of the list is to answer the question "Can I send unsolicited email (or whichever) to this person?" If the name is on the list, the answer is "No". If the name is not on the list, the answer is "Yes", though no guarantee is given that a person of that name exists. Therefore the list only needs to contain the names of the people who have taken the active step of registering.

Point is any list submitted to the UN that carries the names of citizens of any nation can be abused and if that list is not complete or is complete it become a big problem. This by your own will not be complete as it has no way of insuring that everyone has a chance to get their names on such a list if they choose then has no way for recourse if name is on list and they still get spam...
If they are on the list and still get spam originating in a nation which is party to this agreement, they have the recourse of law. The sender has after all broken the law in the sender's nation, so can be prosecuted there.

That is a tasty burger...

It sure was....
Stupid Jheri Curled mofo.

We have updated the draft proposal (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12894417&postcount=1) in line with discussions to date. Significant alterations have been underlined for convenience. We would particularly appreciate the opinion of old hands here as to the legality of the new clause 6, given that we would wish to encourage international cooperation as fully as possible.

The People's Republic of Midgardent's Government, to Gobbanium and to the world, writes:
We apologise for the delay in our reply; we were absent from the chamber at the point at which the ambassador chose to have his tantrum, and failed to notice our secretary's briefing note until this point.

It is clear from a cursory glance at the ambassador's statement that he has not read the response that we directed him to, or indeed any other of our responses on the subject. Until he evinces an understanding of what we have already said, and, one devoutly hopes, consequently apologises for his uncouth blustering, we see no point in speaking further in his direction.

Uh-huh. This rewrite looks suspiciously like an attempt to shoehorn your category-less proposal more closely into a "human rights" resolution -- however, you seemingly fail to realize that still, all this does is restrict economic freedoms, for which there is no category, unless it's in the name of "reducing income inequality" or "increasing basic welfare."

Adding a clause establishing some internationally protected "right" not to be annoyed does little to correct this problem, in fact only further confuses matters, and is silly to the extreme.

Uh-huh. This rewrite looks suspiciously like an attempt to shoehorn your category-less proposal more closely into a "human rights" resolution -- however, you seemingly fail to realize that still, all this does is restrict economic freedoms, for which there is no category, unless it's in the name of "reducing income inequality" or "increasing basic welfare."

Adding a clause establishing some internationally protected "right" not to be annoyed does little to correct this problem, in fact only further confuses matters, and is silly to the extreme.
The commander's suspicions of our motives in the redraft might be allayed by noting that the elements to which she specifically refers are unchanged from the first draft. We remain confident that the right to privacy is sufficient justification in itself.

In the Name of the Eternal Kawaii (mtCObp),

We wish to counter the argument made by the representative from Omigodtheykilledkenny. Our nation fully supports the "right not to be annoyed." Indeed, our government takes great strides to deliver the promise of the Cute One that all believer-citizens shall have serenity. Other nations may not see this as a religious obligation, but we note that noone likes being disturbed. Esteemed representatives, if we have it in our power to lessen that disturbance and increase harmony, we would be remiss if we did not do so!

If this argument is unpersuasive and the representative insists on discussing this in purely economic terms, we should point out that "increasing basic welfare" contains more elements than just material ones. Spam mail is a blight upon peoples' homes, and its elimination--or at least reduction--can do nothing but increase the basic welfare of UN-state citizens.