Authorities in Singapore recently called for a second consultation of its proposed Spam Control Bill. The first was made in May 2004.
Under the proposed law, victims can take legal action against alleged spammers if they are able to prove they suffered damages as a result of the spam e-mail. The draft bill also recognizes mobile devices as a delivery platform for spam.
Singapore is just one of several nations including the United States and Australia, initiating assaults on spam.
According to Symantec's eighth biannual Internet Security Threat Report, spam constituted 61 percent of e-mail during the first half of 2005.
Likewise, data from Ironport showed that 69 percent of all messages in the month of August were spam.
Logistics and transportation company UPS estimates that it receives between 2.5 million and 3 million spam e-mail a week across its offices worldwide.
The company uses an "outsourced solution provided by one of the industry's leading vendors", which successfully filters about 90 percent of spam e-mail before they reach employees, said Donna Barrett, UPS corporate office's technology public relations manager, in an e-mail interview.
In Singapore, hospital chain Parkway Group Healthcare logs 300 spam e-mail per day from its 800 e-mail user accounts, said its general manager Kenneth Thean, who noted that his company does use an antispam software.
Andrew Sansom, director of DP Search, estimates that each PC in his Singapore office receives five to 10 spam e-mail a day. A recruitment agency specializing in the IT and finance industries in Southeast Asia, DP Search uses Symantec's Norton AntiVirus but does not set a high level of antispam protection.
The nature of his business makes the company vulnerable to more unsolicited e-mail, Sansom noted, but setting its antispam tool at a high level could filter out legitimate e-mail from genuine job-seekers.
"We don't throw the baby out with the bath water," he said.
Will legislation work?
With spam fast becoming a pesky part of business electronic communication, it is not surprising that governments worldwide are starting to look at legislation as a way to curb its growth.
But tech lawyer Siew Kum Hong pointed out that Singapore's revised draft bill is as yet an antispam law since it seeks to regulate, but not prohibit, unsolicited commercial electronic messages.
A director of Singapore law firm Keystone Law, Siew noted that while Internet service providers and victims of spam can sue alleged spammers, the proposed law does not make spamming a criminal offence.
ZDNet Asia polled online readers for their take on whether Singapore's draft spam bill would be effective in ridding spam. Of the 83 responses, 67.5 percent indicated that spam cannot be completely eradicated, whether or not there is legislation in place.
Only 10.8 percent felt that the bill would be effective against spam, while 21.7 percent said
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any journo worth his salt will know legislation is not a be all end all solution to spam. If there is indeed such a solution, wouldnt mr gates and his crew have figured out something by now? U speak with such detachment and arrogance. Spam law must be balanced against business/ consumer interest. A blanket ban on spam wld mean online businesses like mine wld lose a precious direct mktg platform. Viagra ads and appeals for political donations are spam, but an email going out to my customers to tell them abt my promotions is not...guess its high time i shld classify some of the stuff i receive from u guys as spam too.
Posted by Taylor Hayes on Monday, October 10 2005 10:09 PM