WSIS-related thematic meetings on Countering Spam
Geneva, 7-9 July 2004

From 7-9 July, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) hosted a meeting in Geneva, bringing together government policy makers and regulators, representatives of Internet service providers, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies, academics, civil society organizations and others, in an effort to counter spam, a "modern day epidemic," and to standardize anti-spam legislation. At present, many countries have no such laws, making it difficult to prosecute spammers.

Robert Horton, head of Australia's Communications Authority, served as the Chairman of the meeting. According to the Chairman's report that emanated from the meeting, "unsolicited commercial communications" or so-called spam has grown into one of the major plagues affecting today's digital world. As much as 80% of all e-mail traffic is spam, compared to 35% a year ago, according to the ITU, with spammers sending hundreds of millions of messages per day. The estimated costs of spam to the global economy are approximately US$25 billion dollars per year. The problem is spreading also to cell phones. In Japan, nine out of ten junk e-mails come in the form of mobile telephone text messages.

Most speakers and participants seemed to agree that there is no "silver bullet," or consensus emerging on the right way forward, as no one solution alone will curb spam. A multi-pronged approach to solving the problem, involving all stakeholders, is clearly necessary. All actors need to engage in a concerted effort, linking the mandates and expertise of various international organizations, as well as the Internet Society, to support and progressively develop an international framework to combat the problem.

The Chairman's report states that spam is a major problem for developed countries, but perhaps is even worse for developing and least developed countries (LDCs), where, because of limited available Internet resources, many users rely on free web-based e-mail services with limits on free storage, which are particularly targeted by spammers. A number of participants highlighted that because of less effective security protection, computers on broadband networks are often hijacked to send spam.

In a session on multilateral and bilateral cooperation, international organizations, regional bodies, and a number of UN Member States presented a review of their initiatives to tackle spam and their views on possible future international cooperation. Acknowledging that the society and culture of each country is different, participants pointed out that it would be very difficult to employ the same anti-spam legislation everywhere. However, information sharing among different national authorities and a cooperative approach to anti-spam law enforcement were seen as fundamental.

Three initiatives were announced during the meeting in Geneva:
1) the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on mutural enforcement on commercial e-mail between enforcement agencies of Australia, the UK and the US, which will include a meeting in London in October 2004;
2) the establishment of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Task Force on spam, which is likely to hold its first meeting in Busan (South Korea) in early September 2004, in conjunction with ITU Telecom Asia and the OECD's 2nd spam workshop;
3) the holding of a special session on spam at the ITU's Global Symposium for Regulators in December 2004.

NGLS