International SPAM Wars

filed under E-mail · 2 comments in the original

Everyone knows that SPAM is out of control and continuing to dilute the value and flexibility of e-mail as a communication medium. There's so much abuse that Stowe Boyd is running his own "Just Say No To E-mail" campaign.

However, some of us still have faith in the system, and believe that, with a little time, things will correct themselves. Many new technological forces are already being ratified into place things are beginning to happen that could quite possibly reduce the level of SPAM by leaps and bounds.

It seems the "world" audience is not ready to give up yet either.

GENEVA -- The United Nations is aiming to bring a "modern-day epidemic" of junk e-mail under control within two years by standardizing legislation to make it easier to prosecute offenders, a leading expert said Tuesday at a technology conference.

[...]

Top priority is pornography "that may come to the attention of children," Mr. Horton said. "I think it's time we did something formally about this. We will have to come to some sort of general understanding."

As much as 85% of all e-mail may be categorized as spam, the ITU said, compared with an estimated 35% just one year ago. The vast majority is generated by a few hundred people, but authorities aren't able to prosecute many of them under current legislation.

Source: WSJ.com, "U.N. Wants to Help Standardize Global Antispamming Law"

Unfortunately, this just seems brawnier that it is. It's nice to think that the world community can prevent this problem, however, the problem does not stem from where they're aiming. Realistically, technological solutions have to be the first round of defense. Server-level protection will reduce the benefit of spamming once it locks out enough information.

The issue with legislation, in my opinion, is that there will always be 1) people that ignore the consequences of committing crime and 2) countries that will not obey "known" conventions. The deliverables from this UN interaction will most likely be a series of best practices in the form of "legislative templates".