iliveinireland
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Spam | Quote: | It is one of the most irritating practices of our time.You arrive at work and your inbox if full of spam emails, you get home and your floor is covered with junk mail and then just as you are relaxing with your evening meal the phone goes and it is a cold caller trying to sell you double glazing, a new patio or something or other.
Well now an official report recommends clamping down on the sources of spam emails, junk mail and cold callers.
The review - commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year - recommends making it easier for the public to keep track of who holds personal information about them.
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and director of the Wellcome Trust Dr Mark Walport said ministers should launch an inquiry into firms which gather personal information and sell it on.
"When you check into a hotel they don't need to know your name and address, they just need to know that the bill will be paid," Dr Walport said.
They also recommended banning town halls from selling "edited" versions of the electoral roll.
Mr Thomas admitted this proposal amounted to a return to the pre-internet age, with copies of the electoral roll only available in public libraries.
The report said the public should have a right to know with whom a company shares, exchanges or sells information.
"Opt outs" on the internet should be made clearer, it added.
It also said the Information Commissioner should have the power to impose massive fines against companies or government bodies which breach privacy rules.
And the report calls for the the Government to consider regulating internet sites which gather publicly-available details about individuals from electoral rolls, company registers and telephone directories.
Mr Thomas said the amount of personal information on social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo was still a problem. |
Hopefully they will cut down on spam 
I dont think they can stop it though tbh :/
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