The Hindu Business Line : ITU comes up with agenda to tackle spam

THE recent meeting of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has resolved to take up a five-point agenda to tackle the challenges posed by spam that covers legislations, a framework to counter spam, educating against `phising' or online identity theft and evolving a code of conduct for Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

The Acting Chairman of Australian Communications Authority, Dr Bob Horton, who is part of the global team that is seeking ways to tackle the spam menace, told Business Line that spam posed serious administrative challenges. The best way to address this problem is through international co-operation and joint crackdown.

The five-point agenda of counter measures to fight spam include tough legislations against spam, a network to tackle this issue and international co-operation. "Given the movement to tackle spam across the developed world, in about two years time, we would be able to fully snub the problem of spam. This would be through both international co-operation between countries as also with software that can check spam," he said.

Dr Horton said that the Microsoft Chairman, Mr Bill Gates, assured that the company would come up with a software to handle the problem.

"Out of 200 major global spammers corporations, eight have been identified in Australia. With deterrence, we have managed to close one of them, one has moved offshore. This has significantly brought down spam from Australia."

This was due to a legislation that imposes a fine of A$1.1 million per day for spamming, he said.

"We are working closely with Microsoft Corporation and other leading software developers ," Dr Horton said.