Colombia is responsible for little spam, but it is fighting spam with the constitutional right of Habeas Data, which protects privacy and data. Last year, a court ruled that Colombians have a constitutional right to opt-out of spamming lists and to have their data protected.
Colombia seems to send little spam and have few problems with ISP blocking, possibly because it has only a little more than one million Internet users. Colombia has stopped some spam involving fraud and illegal products, like this case with the help of Microsoft involving spammers selling pirated software. Microsoft claims to continue to help Colombia fight spam.
The more interesting spam fight uses the legal concept of Habeas Data, literally “let you have the data,” a constitutional right in many Latin American countries. Habeas Data, broadly speaking, protects one’s image, data, and freedom of information. It is based on European common law, but currently is active in South America. Habeas Data was codified in the Colombian Constitution in 1997 with supporting legislation earlier. Colombia’s 1991 Constitution had supported the right to privacy without Habeas Data terminology.
In summer 2003, a well-researched, lengthy Colombian anti-spam ruling, after suryeying international norms, explicitly referred to the Habeas Data right of an internet user to his e-mail address. The court explained Habeas Data as follows:
El Habeas Data brinda el derecho a toda persona de conocer qué datos propios han sido incluidos en registros y bancos de datos o en registros privados, destinados a proveer de informes, para pedir su supresión, rectificación, confidencialidad o actualización en caso de falsedad o discriminación.
Habeas Data gives a user had the right to control data about himself.
The ruling found that continued spamming after a request for removal violated this Habeas Data right as well as “autodeterminación informática y a la intimidad,” freedom of information and privacy. The court ruled the spammer must stop when requested and must also remove the requested data from its records. This makes a constitutionally required opt-out with added protection against passing on private data to others.
This ruling does not seem to have started a campaign of similar rulings. Perhaps they are coming soon, or perhaps there are just not very many Colombian spammers to bring these constitutional claims against. Hopefully, this ruling was so strong it showed Colombian spammers that privacy is a constitutional right, and so they are now being respectful of their spamees.
For other countries, see the Spam Laws Worldwide Index