The right to protection against spam

This is invasion of privacy of the worst kind, far more intrusive than conventional post. One can leave printed junk unopened, and one doesn’t pay for receiving it.

A random survey among customer-victims has revealed an interesting gender dimension to spam — male users’ responses ranged from ‘‘It’s a nuisance, I just delete the junk messages’’, to ‘‘Frankly, my curiosity was triggered. I wanted to see what the hidden pictures were, and who had sent them’’. Only one out of 12 respondents expressed outrage. Women on the other hand, were uniformly furious about this ‘‘bombardment’’ of sexist spiels. Reactions ranged from ‘‘It makes me boiling mad’’ to ‘‘I could kill the sender for subjecting me to this kind of mail’’ (a court sentenced an e-mail victim last month, for threatening to stab the sender of spam). Women expressed anger over ‘‘the helplessness of not knowing where this was coming from’’.

E-mail is an index of technological progress and has become almost mandatory for submitting academic reports, conference papers, applications. But it has also increased the vulnerability of women to sexist assaults through the media, all the more disturbing because the sender cannot be easily traced. Most junk mail, however, originates in the US and as a victim remarks, ‘‘a mighty nation that claims to be the world leader in protecting privacy and citizens’ rights, seems obsessed with sexual performance, dating proposals, credit cards and cable filters!

Globalisation has been blamed for the feminisation of poverty. In the context of e-mails and spam, it is also promoting the denigration of the female. We are quick to get online, but our servers are mighty slow when it comes to protecting customers’ rights, especially women’s rights.