Anti-Spam Legislation in Switzerland
Are you being harassed by spam? Spam is the term used to describe unsolicited and electronically-delivered bulk advertising, including junk e-mail, sent to infiltrate user inboxes with messages promoting products and services. The best way to protect yourself against spam e-mail is to take care with your e-mail address and observe a few basic rules (LINK). However, spam comprises a large share of the global e-mail circulation and cannot be eradicated completely.
Since 1 April 2007, delivering spam in Switzerland has basically become illegal. Electronically-delivered bulk advertising is now only admissible under certain conditions. Under the Federal Act against Unfair Competition, bulk advertising that has no connection to the contents requested by the user must fulfill the following three requirements:
- Bulk advertising requires the consent of the recipient (opt-in model),
- It must contain correct information on the sender
- It must indicate that the receiver can "opt-out" free-of-charge
The only exception to the opt-in model is the following: the seller may use the information provided by buyers for its own advertising purposes, if buyers have provided their address and the seller has informed the buyers of the "opt-out" possibility.
Electronic advertising that does not fulfill these criteria is considered to be spam and therefore violates the principle of fair competition. If you are being harassed by spam from Switzerland, you can take steps to prevent it. In order to find out whether the spam originates from Switzerland and whom you can contact, proceed as follows:
- Use the CYCO-Spam-Analysis (see below) to find out whether the spam message is being sent or forwarded from Switzerland and, if so, via which Internet provider. To perform the spam analysis, you require the spam header, or header lines. The following instructions (PDF) tell you how to do this.
- If the Internet provider is a Swiss company, you can inform it about the delivery of spam messages via its point of contact. If providers are informed of the problem, they are under legal obligation to prevent their clients from sending or forwarding spam messages.
- Sending or forwarding spam is a punishable offence if the messages are delivered intentionally- "intentionally" meaning willfully or deliberately. If you receive spam, that is intentionally-sent and electronically-delivered bulk advertising from a Swiss provider, you can report the advertising company or sender of the message to your local police. However, before doing so, you should consider whether possible criminal proceedings are proportionate to the damage incurred. Sending or forwarding spam is classified as a criminal offence prosecuted only upon application by the victim, and prosecution lies in the jurisdiction of the cantons.