|Data collection period: January 1, 2016 – December 31, 2023|
The widespread “spam” phenomenon, characterized by mass dissemination of unwanted messages and advertisements, affects a large portion of internet users globally, and presents numerous concerning challenges, including unauthorized access to personal devices, the proliferation of viruses, privacy violations, and sometimes substantial financial losses. Enhancing our empirical understanding of spam litigation is vital for safeguarding consumer rights and shaping an internet environment based on transparency and consent. In a first-of-its-kind empirical analysis, the Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL) has released a comprehensive report examining the landscape of spam litigation in Israel between 2016-2022. Using over 13,000 spam-related lawsuits and 1.5 million other civil proceedings, the study provides an unprecedented factual foundation to inform policy debates and legal approaches surrounding this pervasive issue.
In 2008, amendment no. 40 of Section 30A of the Communications Law (Telecommunications and Broadcasting), known as the “Spam Law”, came into effect. This law prohibits the sending of “promotions” through various media without the recipient’s advance consent. Ever since, there has been a pronounced increase in awareness among the Israeli public regarding the phenomenon, and regarding the legal tools available to individuals allowing them to exercise their rights. Still, the public and legal debate in Israel surrounding spam lacks a sufficient factual foundation. This study begins to fill that void, providing a more robust empirical picture of the phenomenon.
The project, spearheaded by the Israel Internet Association (ISOC-IL), collects and analyzes big data from spam lawsuits filed in recent years. Its goal is to arm the public and governmental organizations in Israel with resources for more effective legal management of this issue. The findings shed light on spam litigation trends, identifying disparities and inconsistencies between the judicial rulings of various judges and courts and exposing repeated violators of spam laws. Notable findings from the study are highlighted below.
Authors:
Dr. Asaf Weiner (VP Policy & Research at ISOC-IL; Professor of Law and Information Technologies at Tel Aviv University and Ben Gurion University; Senior Fellow at the Chief Justice Meir Shamgar Center for Digital Law and Innovation at Tel Aviv University)
Ofir Stegmann (doctoral candidate and research fellow at the Bar Ilan University Innovation Lab for Law, Data-Science and Digital Ethics)
Project Manager: Yael Ram
Research Assistants: Ido Ilai, Naomi Cohen and Asaf Niazov.
The authors would like to thank additional colleagues for their comments and input on earlier drafts of this document: Alon Jasper (Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law), Dr. Mickey Zar (Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law), Adv. Yoram Hacohen (ISOC-IL), Guy Zomer (“The Law Worm”), Adv. Tal Kaplan (Pearl Cohen law firm), and Dr. Gali Aviv (Director of the Israeli Courts Research Division).
This study was made possible by a grant from the Public Fund to Finance Class Action Lawsuits, originally established by the Ministry of Justice (Open Call no. 38/2022: Prevention of Spam).
The full report and datasets (in Hebrew) are available here.
Executive Summary and Key Findings
Our research team compiled a big data set encompassing all lawsuits filed in Israel between 2016-2022. This covers approximately 13,000 spam-related lawsuits and around 1.5 million other lawsuits, including small claims, summary proceedings and class actions. The spam legislation database includes over 20 fields for each proceeding, including name of judge/registrar, names of plaintiff/s and defendant/s, the court that adjudicated the proceedings, the claim amount, and the proceeding’s status and outcome. The data was compiled using innovative computational methods to extract and encode information from legal proceedings. This method enables the analysis of long-term trends and allows us to examine the impact of legal developments on the manner in which the law is implemented, all with a high level of reliability. The findings in the current report are categorized by topic:
Spam Litigation Volume and Geographic Disparities
- Between 2016–2022, over 13,000 spam lawsuits were filed in Israel, mostly small claims (93%).
- More small claims spam lawsuits are filed in magistrates’ courts in Central Israel than in other areas of the country, a figure that could testify to disparities in the levels of knowledge various message recipients possess regarding spam legislation, the violation of their legal rights and the legal tools available to them.
Dismissal Rates, Legal Representation Impact, and Variance Between Different Courts and Judges
Small claims concerning spam tend to be dismissed more often than small claims that do not concern spam. Between 2016-2022, 42% of small claims concerning spam were adjudicated, compared to 60% of small claims not concerning spam.
- Spam lawsuits filed as summary proceedings are accepted for adjudication more often than spam-related small claims, apparently because the former are filed exclusively by lawyers, which naturally screens out lawsuits with a high chance of dismissal or which are not economically worthwhile.
- In recent years, there has been a pronounced upwards trend in the acceptance rate of spam lawsuits, which could indicate spam recipients’ increasing knowledge regarding the law and their rights.
The outcomes of spam lawsuits vary significantly based on the court at which they were adjudicated. Thus, for example, in a certain court only 33% of spam claims filed were accepted, while in another court 61% were accepted. Great discrepancies were also found on the personal level, with some judges tending to accept spam claims more often than others. These findings attest to the need for stronger professional standardization in order to increase the uniformity of judgments.
Judicial Processing Times and Other Variables
The median amount of time it takes to resolve a small spam lawsuit is 154 days. However, significant disparities were found for this variable between different courts. While in one court the median time taken to resolve a spam lawsuit was 68 days, in another the median time was 216 days. In some courts, cases concerning spam are handled only by certain judges, while in others spam cases are handled by all of the courts’ judges. 60% of small spam cases are closed without court hearings, versus 33% of small cases not concerning spam.
Alleged Monetary Damages and Trends as Compared With Other Civil Proceedings
Over the last three years (2020 – 2022), there has been a rise in the claimed sums of monetary damages in spam lawsuits.
- In small claims concerning spam, the sums demanded by plaintiffs are “modest” compared to the sums in small claims not concerning spam. The median for spam cases is NIS 2,000 and the average is NIS 5,963. The main reason for this is, among others, because statutory compensation in spam lawsuits is relatively low.
- In contrast, in summary proceedings concerning spam, plaintiffs claim higher amounts relative to summary proceedings not concerning spam, with a median of NIS 21,000 and an average of NIS 25,871.
This innovative study quantifies the real-world impacts of Israel’s anti-spam legislation and illuminates areas for improvement in uniformly and efficiently addressing spam violations through the legal system.
The full report and datasets (in Hebrew) are available here. For additional information and collaborations, contact our International Department at [email protected].