With spam now accounting for over 60% of all e-mail traffic on the internet, up from under half in 2003 and under 10% in 2001, according to figures from anti-spam firm Brightmail, and with around 80% of spam received by UK internet users originating from abroad, cross-border collaboration on tackling spam is essential.
Consequently, the OFT, together with the US Federal Trade Commission, yesterday brought together consumer protection, data protection and telecommunications agencies from 15 countries around the world in a conference to promote cross-border cooperation on spam and spam-related problems, such as on-line fraud and computer viruses.
Conference members have now agreed on an Action Plan, in which participating government bodies, including the OFT and the UK's Information Commissioner and consumer protection bodies from the US, Australia, Japan and Ireland, have made commitments to:
encourage communication and coordination between agencies to achieve efficient and effective enforcement;
make regular conference calls to discuss: cases, legislative developments, investigative techniques, ways to address obstacles to enforcement, consumer and business education projects; and,
encourage dialogue between government agencies and private sector representatives to promote ways to support government agencies in bringing spam cases and pursue their own initiatives to fight spam.
The action plan, says the OFT, is open for other interested government agencies and for appropriate private sector representatives to join in order to expand the network of bodies working together to combat spam.
Representatives from the private sector, including financial institutions, ISPs, telcos and consumer organisations also took part in the conference. They have committed themselves to:
establishing a designated contact within an organisation to facilitate responses and requests for enforcement related assistance from spam enforcement agencies;
work with other private sector representatives to establish a resource list of individuals within particular sectors working on spam enforcement;
participation in conference calls to assist law enforcement agencies in bringing spam cases and provide information on cases, new technology, trends in internet and spam and general data on spam as an early warning mechanism for government agencies;
assisting in training for government agencies to help their investigations and to bring spam cases; and
assisting government agencies in understanding the best ways to request information from them.