Nigeria Set to Criminalise Spamming

Nigeria is considering making spamming a criminal offence for which senders of unsolicited emails could be imprisoned for at least three years.

"Any person spamming electronic messages to recipients with whom he has no previous relationship commits an offence," the text of the draft law presented to parliament this week said.

Convicted offenders would face either at least three years in jail, a fine equal to $3,500 (£1,990), or both. The bill must be approved by a simple majority of MPs to become law.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is known for its "advance fee" spammers -people who send millions of unsolicited emails containing false proposals around the world.

Among the most common are emails proposing to share portions of the estates of dead African dictators in exchange for an advance payment to help move the money overseas. In reality, the "fees" are kept, while victims of the scam receive nothing.

The proposed law identifies use of computers for spamming, fraud, identity theft, child pornography and terrorism as criminal offences punishable by jail terms and fines.

The Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, whose election in 1999 ended more than 15 years of corrupt military rule in the oil-rich country, has made the fight against corruption and financial crime a key policy.

Computer users around the world see spam as a growing nuisance.

In 2003, the EU banned all commercial emails unless a recipient had asked for them, but the regulation must be approved by each national parliament to become effective.

The US congress and more than three dozen US state legislatures have passed laws in an attempt to contain spam.

Argentina, Australia, Canada and Japan are among other countries to have taken legal steps against spam, according to a website maintained by the Illinois law professor David Sorkin.