Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) yesterday said that Internet spammers would be fined if they continued to send junk e-mails without permission.
"Many people, including myself, have been bothered by junk mail," Chen told reporters at a press conference. "We hope that the right to say `no' can be protected."
Chen also said that the ministry has amended Article 22-2 of the Law for the Protection of Computer-managed Personal Information (
According to the amendment, Internet junk mail senders must ask for the recipients' authorization the first time correspondence is sent before sending any more e-mails. If the recipient refuses, junk mail senders who continue to send correspondence would be subject to a fine of between NT$20,000 and NT$200,000.
For junk e-mail that has no identification or return e-mail addresses, the Internet service providers (ISP) would be responsible for providing contact information if requested by customers.
Chen said that the amendment would not necessarily adversely affect e-commerce. The spirit of the amendment is to reserve a right for Internet surfers to decline junk mail, he said
"Actually, junk mail may not be turned down by every Internet user," Chen said. "Some of them do enjoy receiving the latest information about different products. Under this circumstance, both the junk mail sender and the recipient will be happy."
Chen also said that local banks or credit card companies could be leaking customers' personal information to junk mail message senders.
"In addition to amending the law, prosecutors are also trying to figure out who is selling and leaking information," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching