A.C.C.C. joins campaign to reduce spam

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has joined the US Federal Trade Commission international campaign against spam that urges organisations to Close Open Relays and Proxies to prevent them from unwittingly sending spam.

The ACCC and 36 additional agencies in 26 countries are part of "Operation Secure Your Sever", which is an international drive to reduce the flow of unsolicited commercial email by urging companies to close "open relays" and "open proxies."

They have identified tens of thousands of owners of operators who potentially have open proxy servers around the world. They have sent them letters suggesting that they should protect themselves from being hit unwittingly from spam sources.

The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) is the government body charged with implementing Australia's anti-spam legislation, which will be in action from 11 April, 2004. They will be taking part in the project also.

The Spam Act 2003 prohibits sending, or causing to be sent, unsolicited commercial electronic messages that have an Australian link and provides for fines against companies of A$110,000 and court imposed penalties of up to A$1.1 million per day.

Spammers take advantage of open relays and proxies to flood the Internet with unwanted email, that overloads servers and also could damage an unwitting business' reputation if it appears that the business sent the spam.

ACCC chairman, Mr. Graeme Samuel, said: "International cooperation is going to play an important role in combating spam, as this project clearly demonstrates. Moreover government cannot solve the spam problem on its own; everyone with an Internet connection must do their part to make sure that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem."

The FTC led initiative involves agencies from Albania, Argentina, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, Jamaic, Japan, Lthuania, Norwa, Panama, Peru, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and the U.K.

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