The infrastructure and standardisation basket
Another possible anti-spam approach was undertaken by the leading Internet companies that host e-mail accounts: America Online, British Telecom, Comcast, EarthLink, Microsoft, and Yahoo! They established the Anti-Spam Technical Alliance (ASTA) with the main task of coordinating technical and policy-related anti-spam activities. The issues Different definitions of spam Different understandings of spam affect the anti-spam campaign. In the USA, a general concern about the protection of the freedom of speech and the First Amendment also affect the anti-spam campaign. US legislators consider spam to be only ‘unsolicited commercial e-mail’ leaving out other types of spam, including political activism and pornography. In most other countries, spam is considered to be any ‘unsolicited bulk e-mail’ regardless of its content. Since most spam is generated from the USA, this difference in definitions seriously limits any possibility of introducing an effective international anti-spam mechanism. Spam and e-mail authentication One of the structural enablers of spam is the possibility of sending e-mail messages with a fake sender’s address. There is a possible technical solution to this problem, which would require changes in existing Internet e-mail standards. IETF is working on introducing changes to the e-mail protocol, which would ensure the authentication of e-mail. This is an example of how technical issues (standards) can affect policy. A possible trade-off that the introduction of e-mail authentication would bring is the restriction of anonymity on the Internet. The need for global action Most spam originates from outside a given country. It is a global problem requiring a global solution. There are various initiatives that could lead towards improved global cooperation. Some of them, such as bilateral MoUs, have already been mentioned. Others include such actions as capacity building and information exchange. A more comprehensive solution would involve some sort of global anti-spam instrument. So far, developed countries prefer the strengthening of national legislations coupled with bilateral or regional antispam campaigns. Given their disadvantaged position of receiving a ‘global public bad’ originating mainly from developed countries, most developing countries are interested in shaping a global response to the spam problem.
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