The campaign to rid bulging inboxes of spam has gathered pace in Europe this year after forecasts revealed that one in two of all e-mails sent to individuals and companies by this month will be spam. Of these, 20 per cent are pornographic, according to figures from anti-spam software providers Brightmail.
Spam is not only a nuisance for the receiver, it is also a costly pest for companies to rid themselves of. Brightmail’s figures reveal that some high profile companies experience spam rates as high as 79 per cent.
According to the European Commission, the loss in productivity for businesses in the EU through spam was €2.5bn (£1.8bn) in 2002.
The EU is one of the few governmental bodies to have adopted legislation to try and cut and curb the growth of spam. On July 15, Erkki Liikanen, EU commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, outlined how the EU is planning to address the growth of unsolicited e-mail.
Following the adoption in June last year of a directive on privacy and electronic communications, EU member states have to put a ban on spam into national legislation by 31 October 2003. The member states have to have plans in place to apply and enforce this by the October deadline.
As of this date, messages containing commercial sales offers can only be sent to individuals who ‘opt-in’ in advance to receive them.
The ‘opt-in’ directive covers e-mails and Short Messaging Services (SMS) received on any fixed terminal or mobile phone. It will be an offence to send any messages from within the EU to people in the EU member states who have not opted in.
While the EU legislation should filter out much local spam, it only applies to EU member states so cannot curb unsolicited e-mail from elsewhere.
Steve Linford, founder and director of The Spamhaus Project, a non-profit organisation that specialises in blocking spam messages by tracing them back to their source, said that 90 per cent of all unsolicited e-mail messages in circulation originate from only some 200 people, mainly operating out of the US or China.
Linford said that if the EU directive is to work, the rest of the world must follow suit and adopt ‘opt-in’ measures. If they do not, the efforts by the EU will be wasted. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and businesses will continue to receive greater volumes of spam.
In his presentation in July, Liikanen called for international co-operation. “Combating spam has become a matter for us all and has become one of the most significant issues facing the internet today,” he said.
“It is a fight on many fronts. The EU, member states, industry and consumers all have a role to play in the fight against spam both at the national and international level. We must act before users of e-mails or SMS stop using the internet or mobile services, or refrain from using it to the extent that they otherwise would.”
At present, the US is considering a number of bills that take an ‘opt-out’ approach. It will make spamming legal unless the consumer has opted out of receiving it.
Linford believes that if the proposed US ‘opt-out’ laws are passed, the whole e-mail system will explode. He said: “If the US goes for an opt-out law the spam problem will go through the roof.”
Ahead of the implementation of the EU directive in the UK, the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group, a cross-party discussion forum, called a ‘spam summit’ in London at the start of July.
Speaking at the summit, UK e-commerce minister Stephen Timms said: “With more public services going online it’s vital that the public trust in the security and viability of the internet.
“The regulatory controls on spam will be strengthened later this year when the UK implements new EU rules on unsolicited commercial e-mail.”
Jim Halpert, a partner with the e-commerce and privacy practice of US-based law firm Piper Rudnick, which has helped draft US internet laws, said: “Spam is a global problem, and at this juncture a topic of intense activity in the US.” He added that it is essential to co-operate internationally in developing and enforcing clear and balanced rules.
But Linford said that even if the majority of countries in the world adopt tough legislation to fight spam, offenders can move to servers in smaller countries where spamming is not yet illegal. At present, many of the worst US spammers already operate out of other countries where they pay local servers to run their traffic.
Though a time consuming venture, blocking all internet access in places where this happens might be one way of forcing spammers to move on.
Enrique Salem, chief executive of Brightmail, was also sceptical to the notion that legislation alone will curb the spread of spam. “Legislation only goes so far. Technology companies, governments and ISPs working closely together is the key to winning the war against spammers,” he said.
The EU is pushing for the issue of international co-operation in the fight against spam to become an item on the agenda of the World Summit on the Information Society, which is to be held in Geneva on 10 to 12 December.
Source: Computer act!ve – http://www.computeractive.co.uk/analysis/1150292
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