Singapore, a country famous for its strict punishments for even minor crimes, again lived up to its reputation with a new law threatening a fine of 10,000 Singaporean Dollars (US$8,000) for every single unwanted e-mail sent for the purposes of solicitation otherwise known as spam.

What this will mean for the generic medicine and penis enhancement industries in Singapore remains to be seen.

On 15 October the Singaporean Parliament approved new legislation in an effort to protect personal information.  The new set of laws were established to help promote the country as a place for IT companies to operate securely and comfortably according to the Minister for Information, Communications, and the Arts, Yaacob Ibrahim.

The law will be enforced by means of a registry managed by the soon to be established Department of Personal Information Protection.

Like in other countries, if people do not wish to receive unrequested e-mails or calls from telemarketers then they can sign up for the do not contact list.  Any company or individual who contacts them for business purposes will be subject to the S$10,000 fines.  This is an increase from the 2007 Spam Control Act’s S$25 (US$20) per mail penalty.

Of course given the massive scale of spam the legislation sets a maximum limit of 1 million Singaporean Dollars (US$800,000).  Overall, the fines imposed are similar to those in North America.

The new laws will be put into force from 2013 to the middle of 2014.  Despite the large penalties it is believed that they will do much to curb spamming since such e-mails are mainly sent from outside the country.

So the Prince of Nigeria can likely rest easy knowing his search for a banking partner will continue unimpeded.

Source: Xinhua News (Japanese)