OECD task force on spam

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is taking the fight against unsolicited commercial e-mail to Asia next month, where it will hold a meeting to discuss the priorities for its newly created task force on spam, it announced Thursday.

The task force will encourage best practices in industry, promote technical measures to combat spam and facilitate cross-border law enforcement, the OECD said. It will also coordinate international policy, bringing together the many different national bodies that have competencies in this field, it said.

The Task Force will take two years to study and develop a tool kit of strategies to combat spam, including authentication and network management technologies as well as public awareness campaigns. The group will consider how to manage spam sent via mobile phones or instant messaging networks.

South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication will host a workshop Sept. 8-9 in Busan, South Korea, to set priorities for the task force. OECD member states last discussed coordinating their antispam activities in February, at a meeting in Brussels hosted by the European Commission.

A recent survey by CipherTrust found that almost 29 percent of the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses sending spam to a sample of 1,000 U.S. businesses in May, June and July were in South Korea -- although these addresses accounted for only 3 percent of the total volume of spam messages. Around 86 percent of the spam messages identified in the survey originated from IP addresses in the U.S.

Further information about the OECD's antispam work can be found at http://www.oecd.org/sti/spam