15 nations unite to fight spam.

Representatives from several worldwide legislative and governmental bodies recently met in London to discuss how to crack down on spam.

Fifteen countries signed the "London Action Plan on Spam," the first product of the anti-spam enforcement summit, jointly hosted by the U.K. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The plan is intended to develop a united international front to combat spam. Those signing up agreed to several initiatives such as "encouraging communication and coordination between agencies to achieve efficient and effective enforcement," according to an OFT statement. Alliance members will take part in regular conference calls to discuss the best ways to address obstacles to enforcement and to collaborate on effective ways to bring spam cases against bulk mailers.

John Vickers, OFT chairman, says the plan demonstrates a "true international commitment to fighting spam," but critics say it falls short on several fronts. For example, China and Russia are not involved, but both are huge generators and senders of spam, particularly China, where many spammers use servers based in Beijing. Critics also point out that Internet service providers (ISPs), who could potentially stop spam at the source, are not involved in the process. In addition, the anti-spam industry is not playing a major role in the planning process. More laws will only be ignored by spammers, critics contend.

But FTC Chairman Deborah Majoras said the creation of an international working group on spam is vital in breaking down the problem of enforcing laws across national boundaries and multiple jurisdictions. "As a global community, we can send a message to the spammers, telling them 'you can no longer use a national border as a shield to protect yourself from law enforcement.'"

Alliance members include Australia, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Spain, and Sweden.

Within the United States, the FTC recently organized a meeting for the top ISPs to discuss different technological approaches to determine the origin of individual e-mail messages. The four largest ISPs--Yahoo, America Online, Microsoft, and EarthLink--agree that authentication is the goal but disagree on how to get there.

Authentication technology would try to thwart spam by tying e-mail addresses to real locations and identities, reducing the ability of junk mailers to hide their identities from people who do not want to receive their messages. It would reduce spam by allowing e-mail providers to bounce messages with falsified addresses. It also could underpin future technologies that make it easier for users to get only the e-mail messages that they want. For an authentication scheme to work, e-mail providers must agree to use the same system.