Spam crackdown signs up 15 countries

An impressive 15 countries have signed up to the 'London Action Plan on Spam' - the first fruit of the anti-spam enforcement summit which began in London yesterday, jointly hosted by the Office of Fair Trading and the US Federal Trade Commission.

Among those on the list are representative bodies from Australian, Korea, the UK and importantly the US, which generates around half the world's spam email traffic.

Those conspicuous by their absence include, most notably, China and Russia who also play a huge part in generating and sending unsolicited email - particularly China, where many spammers use servers based in Beijing.

But while Andy Morris, product director at Clearswift, admitted the absence of such nations is a serious concern he believes the major culprit to date is represented.

"It is incredibly important that America is on the list," said Morris. "While much of the spam may be routed via countries such as China or Russia, most of the cash ends up in America."

The London Action Plan is intended to develop international links to address spam. Those signing up have agreed to a number of initiatives such as "encouraging communication and coordination between agencies to achieve efficient and effective enforcement," according to a statement from the OFT.

It also says members of the alliance will take part in "regular conference calls" to discuss the best ways to address obstacles to enforcement and to collaborate on effective ways to bring spam cases against bulk mailers.

John Vickers, OFT chairman, said the Action Plan demonstrates "a true international commitment to fighting spam" - though critics will suggest it still falls some way short of a robust defence against spam.

John Cheney, CEO of BlackSpider Technologies, expressed concern that initiatives such as regular conference calls still sound like more talk and too little action.

Cheney said: "The plan looks interesting, although governments and international trade bodies have so far had zero impact on the volumes of junk email we process."

"While we should encourage action from these bodies I remain sceptical that they will have any impact on the problems we see day-to-day," he added.

The OFT yesterday said it fully intends to pursue a policy of end-user education, whicy many believe could be a lengthy and often frustratingly ineffective campaign. But BlackSpider's Cheney said it would be far better served using its limited resources to get ISPs involved in the process - effectively taking end users out of the equation by stopping spam at source.

"The ISPs can actually turn off the 'life blood' of a spammer - the high-speed internet access and the place to host their sites," said Cheney.

He also expressed concern over the fact the anti-spam industry didn't play a major part in the planning process. Even those vendors who were invited along to take part in events at the DTI were forbidden from sitting in on key discussions, according to one leading vendor.

"The anti-spam industry should be more closely involved in the process," said Cheney. "It's a combination of technology, change in work practises and legislation which will improve things. More laws which are ignored by spammers won't be very helpful."

Clearswift's Morris is more confident the initiative may prove effective in the long term, if only because it will first learn from its own ineffectiveness.

"These bodies are soon going to become frustrated if all they are doing is talking and that frustration may be the catalyst to start demanding more ammunition, more teeth and more severe penalties from their governments."

Morris said he is hopeful the action plan may represent positive first steps. "I just hope steps two and three come along very quickly," he added.

The full list of countries/bodies signed up looks like this:
Australian Communications Authority
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
Dutch Telecommunications Regulator
Finnish Consumer Agency and Ombudsman
Hungarian State Secretariat for Economic Affairs
Hungarian General Inspectorate for Consumer Protection
Japan Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications
Japan Fair Trade Commission
Korean Information Security Agency
Lithuanian Data Protection Commissioner
Lithuanian Communications Regulatory Authority
Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman
Spanish Data Protection Agency
Swedish National Consumer Service
Swedish Consumer Protection Agency
UK Office of Fair Trading
UK Information Commissioner Office
US Federal Trade Commission