Speaking at a fringe meeting on internet security at the Labour Party Conference last week, O'Brien said that while he would prefer to see self-regulation in the industry, he was considering legislative measures to tackle the security threat posed by spam and viruses.
According to reports, one part of his "multi-pronged" approach might include the granting of increased powers to Richard Thomas, the UK's Information Commissioner, to investigate and act against these threats.
The Office of the Information Commissioner already has enforcement powers to deal with unsolicited commercial e-mail, cookies and other privacy issues in electronic communications following the coming into force of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations last December.
The additional powers might take the form of "stop now" orders, based on the existing "stop now" enterprise legislation," said O'Brien, according to ComputerWeekly.com.
They might also include the power to reveal the source of rogue communications, and the removal of the current exemption that permits marketers to send spam to businesses.