Paris, 04/10/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently decided to create a Task Force on Spam (unwanted electronic mail) at international level, thus responding to a concern expressed by the European Commission during the first half of the year (see EUROPE of 8 September, p.16). Chaired by Tom Dale, the task force quickly begun its task after the creation by OECD of an "Anti-Spam Toolkit" project, which is "the first step in a broader initiative to help policy makers, regulators and industry restore trust in the Internet and e-mail".
The aims and components of the Toolkit were outlined at the second OECD Workshop on Spam in Busan, Korea, on 8 and 9 September 2004. The next step will be to give form to the content of the toolkit, which will comprise: - a reference guide to the different existing approaches to spam regulation to help identify loopholes and ways of improving international enforcement and cooperation; - an examination of the self-regulatory arrangements which exist at industry, national or international levels which can be applied against spam; - an analysis of existing and emerging technical measures against spam, including authentication technology to combat the phenomenon of "phishing"; - and an overview of existing partnerships against spam, examples of good practice and lessons that can be learnt for the development of cooperative partnerships against spam.
The OECD Spam Task Force, which includes participants from all 30 OECD countries, the European Commission, the Business and Advisory Committee to the OECD and civil society, will lead the development of the toolkit. OECD invites all stakeholders in business and industry, policy makers, governments and civil society, including non-member countries, to sending a contribution to spam.project@oecd.org.