Speak up or be spammed forever

If you've ever wanted to take action about the huge amount of spam that occupies vast amounts of space in your inbox, now is your chance.

The Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, has called for public comment on the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) report titled The Spam Problem and How it Can Be Countered.

The report states:
spam is a popular vehicle for illegal or commercially unscrupulous promotions;spam costs the sender very little and transfers most of the costs to recipients (including employee productivity losses);
key problems include privacy breaches, illegal and/or offensive content, misleading and deceptive trade practices and network integrity risks;
some Australian businesses are being ÔspoofedÕ by spammers, when nuisance email is being routed through those firms so that business managers are obliged to spend inordinate time rectifying their reputation with disgruntled recipients;
although legislation may form part of a strategy to control spam, an outright ban on spam would not reduce spam due to the difficulty of identifying spammers and the global nature of the problem;
Australia's strategy to reduce spam should balance the regulatory, self-regulatory, technical and consumer awareness approaches;
with the international dimension of spam that makes it necessary to have a strategy in the medium term that fits in with international counter-measures although this will take longer to negotiate and implement.

The report can be found at www.noie.gov.au/spam/interimreport.