Internet Group - Global Internet Project - Says Spam Threatens the Internet; Best Practices, Not Regulation Best Tool to Fight The Problem.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

At a recent Arlington, Virginia workshop hosted by The Global Internet Project (GIP), "Spam - Can It Be Stopped?," participants and panelists representing government, academia, law and business expressed concern over the growing use of spam by fraudulent commercial enterprises.

Vinton Cerf, Senior Vice President of Architecture and Technology at WorldCom, Inc. warned that in the age of fast advancing technology, including faster computers and deployment of broadband Internet access, spam is not only a growing problem, but is one of the most serious threats to the trust in and use of the Internet.

"Increased bandwidth will not trivialize the cost and nuisance factor of spam, either at the ISP, business or individual user levels," Cerf stressed. "Spammers will always take advantage of the latest technology to optimize their outreach, so that in the future, we may be bombarded by huge amounts of high resolution video and graphics. Technological advances will never outgrow the negative effects of spam."

The scope of the "problem" was recently captured by Brightmail Inc., one of the nation's largest anti-spam firms, which detected a 600 percent increase in spam from May 2001 to May 2002. It is estimated that 27 percent of all email today can be classified as "spam."

eMarketer, a research firm, estimate that 76 billion spam emails will be sent worldwide in 2003, at an average cost to the spammers of 0.00032 U.S. cents per message. Dubious spam "clearinghouses," offer spammers millions of email addresses at low costs.

Spam is also increasingly becoming a problem for users with wireless connections, and in particular in Japan and Europe, with the i-Mode and SMS messaging systems. Expensive and slow connections make spam over wireless networks particularly expensive and burdensome to users.

There was a strong consensus at the workshop that spam will never be completely eliminated, but that a series of measures must be taken in order to minimize its broad and negative impact on economic and personal productivity, and to address the nuisance and privacy invasions.

GIP Chairman John Patrick applauded FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle's remarks that new legislation will not stop spam, but that effective enforcement of existing laws that address fraud and deceptive practices both in the online and offline worlds can have a positive impact.

The FTC is addressing consumer complaints daily and is taking actions against deceptive commercial email and spammers who don't honor their "remove me" claims. An anti-spam portal has been established at http://www.ftc.gov/spam.

"What is needed is more high profile prosecution of those using spam to engage in fraud or other criminal activity. This would be a deterrent to future would-be spammers," added Patrick. "Greater efforts must be made to demonstrate that fraud and deceptive practices on the Internet carry a high risk of capture and prosecution."

Workshop participants made a strong statement that a multi-faceted approach was crucial to address the burgeoning problem of spam. By leveraging the abilities of Internet service providers (ISPs), software companies, employers, consumers, and government, spam can be most effectively addressed. ISPs must further limit open relay connections, which provide loop-holes for spammers.

ISPs, email clients and operating system creators should help educate end users and provide warnings about spam: "if it sounds too good to be true, it is," how to secure personal computer connections, and how to report spam to ISP abuse coordinators and government authorities.

Moreover, ISPs do and should continue to effectively address consumer complaints about spam, and block user accounts of mass-spammers. Millions of spam messages are already stopped daily.

"However," Vint Cerf cautioned, "ISPs should not be engaged in filtering unsolicited mail strictly based on content. Businesses and end users must be educated and be provided the technology tools necessary to establish their own definitions of spam, and create their own threshold for how much mail should be filtered out. Users may subscribe to `blacklists' of spammers, and filter out messages based on content and other criteria. In the future, users may take advantage of digital identification technologies to establish their own personal `white lists' of approved email senders (similar to how instant messaging buddy lists are created, based on personal preferences).

Universities, other institutions and organizations also attempt to stop spam at their gates, in order to protect their students and employees.

Ms. A. Jill Reese, a workshop participant who is a Coordinator at the University of Maryland, cautioned that "expecting only the end user to filter spam shifts the economic burden of bandwidth usage and spam control squarely onto the often ill-prepared end user's shoulders. The University is experimenting with methods to prune the flood of spam without violating First Amendment rights."

Businesses also need to be educated on how to differentiate between legitimate commercial email based on existing customer relationships, and unsolicited "spam" messages. Industry should strive to develop universally accepted best practices to guide enterprises, ISPs and consumers.

Presentations from the workshop are available at http://www.gip.org/publications/classification.asp?CLASSIFICATION_ID=6 #28. (Please note: Due to the length of this URL, it may be necessary to cut and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field.)

About the GIP

The Global Internet Project (GIP) is an international group of senior executives committed to fostering continued growth of the Internet. GIP members come from leading Internet-centric companies representing the telecommunications, software, hardware, and financial services sectors. Based in Arlington, Virginia, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) serves as GIP headquarters.

For more information about GIP, visit http://www.GIP.org.