ITU talks aim to kill off 'spam plague'

The world's leading telecoms companies and ISPs will gather in Geneva next month to discuss ways of combatting spam.

Spam is a potential threat to digital services and "a significant and growing problem for users, networks and the internet as a whole", according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).

Analyst Gartner has predicted that half of all email will be spam by 2004.

The ITU said spam "has grown into one of the major plagues affecting the digital world".

Anti-spam organisation Spamhaus, which has been invited to speak at the event, said it is a good start but warned that the current laissez-faire attitudes of the industry and European governments is harming efforts to fight spam.

"Even China (which ranks second in the world for sending out spam) is taking a stiffer line against spam than European states," said Richard Cox, a representative of Spamhaus.

"The US has weak anti-spam laws and is enforcing these as well as using other computer misuse laws. Most of Europe is only paying lip service to anti-spam measures."

dinah_greek@vnu.co.uk

See also:

ITU wants spam dead within two years

Conference delegates call for international co-operation to defeat 'epidemic'  07 Jul 2004

Spammers face tri-nation crackdown

UK, US and Australia join forces to investigate and prosecute spammers  02 Jul 2004

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL push anti-spam plans

Anti-Spam Technical Alliance publishes recommendations on best practice  23 Jun 2004

How to sell - A pretty kettle of phish

New technologies have brought with them a new wave of security challenges. Resellers stand to benefit if they help end-users to create and manage the systems and policies required  01 Jun 2004

Symantec delivers on Brightmail buy-out

Cash acquisition of anti-spam vendor 'a good long-term bet'  30 May 2004

Voice & Data

  02 Sep 2003

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