The changing legal arena and spam.

Here are two stories that ran last week in Directnewsline that we think no marketer should miss. Electronic channels are proprietary and the tools to police them are being developed and written into law. Take note of these latest developments.

Japan On Fast Track To Squelch Wireless Spain

It may be slow going here in the US to launch the war on spam but in Japan the government is not wasting any time.

NTT Docomo Corp, a Japanese mobile phone carrier, won a victory against junk e-mail last week when a Tokyo court ordered compensation for the costs of sending unsolicited messages over its wireless Internet service, according to wire service reports.

In the first court decision against the country's spam mailers, a Tokyo company was ordered to pay docomo 6.57 million yen ($54,420). These junk emailers regularly flood wireless e-mail networks with randomly addressed advertisements for pornography or dating services.

Anti-spam legislation implemented last July requires unsolicited e-mail be clearly labeled "in the subject line. Docomo offers a service to let users reject such messages, but much still apparently gets through.