Anti Spam Organization BestPrac.Org Re-Launched
The globally focused anti spam organization BestPrac.Org relaunched this month after overcoming a funding crisis. BestPrac.Org Chairman, Mr. Trevor Johnson, stated today that BestPrac.Org’s four year history of devising and promoting ‘Principles of Best Practice for Spam Prevention’ resumes immediately.
Sydney, Australia (PRWEB) May 11, 2004 -- The globally focused anti spam
organization BestPrac.Org relaunched this month after overcoming a funding
crisis. BestPrac.Org Chairman, Mr. Trevor Johnson, stated today that
BestPrac.Org’s four year history of devising and promoting ‘Principles of Best
Practice for Spam Prevention’ resumes immediately after the brief absence caused
by funding problems.
BestPrac.Org’s website, http://www.bestprac.org
provides twenty different sets of ‘Principles of Best Practice’ to cover a wide
range of different types of Internet industry participants. These Principles
specify ethical and technological standards each sector of the internet industry
needs to adopt to combat the rising tide of email spam internationally. The
relaunch of BestPrac.Org has seen an overhaul and update of the Principles of
Best Practice that recognise changes in spammer behaviour, improvements in
technology, and the rise of legislation.
Mr. Johnson said that many of
the Principles originated by BestPrac.Org have been adopted by several major
ISPs, software developers, and other internet industry participants. He cited
examples such as technologies preventing automated account sign-ups with free
service providers, and email software and services that have introduced web-bug
blocking.
“There is still much work to be done in making these Principles
known and put into practice worldwide. Too much responsibility has been placed
by the internet community on end-user spam filters. We believe a greater
emphasis needs to be placed on source-server prevention via the use of
rate-limiter technologies, for example. That way, spam can be prevented at
source, before bandwidth and associated costs which are effectively paid for by
the recipients, not the spammers, are consumed” Mr. Johnson said.
Mr.
Johnson furthermore said that recent legislative measures in the USA, Europe and
Australia have proven largely counter-productive. “The US CAN-SPAM Act, in
particular, tends to legitimise spam. The fact that, after more than three
months of operation, tens of millions of spam emails are still being sent from
US based ISPs every hour, most of it not even complying with the most basic
requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act, shows that it is not working.
“The
volume of spam continues to grow. There is a lack of legal recourse by private
citizens against spammers. Only four (4) people have been charged thus far by
the FTC for CAN-SPAM violations. These facts show that the current law alone is
grossly inadequate to meet the challenge of bringing an end to the international
scourge of spam. While workable and enforceable laws are welcome, the real
answer lies in widespread compliance with BestPrac.Org’s comprehensive sets of
‘Principles of Best Practice for Email Spam Prevention and Eradication” Mr
Johnson said.
It is understood that a further project currently being
undertaken by BestPrac.Org is a research and analysis assignment to quantify and
specify the ISPs and hosting services most used by spammers. With such facts on
the table, honest internet users, individuals and corporations, will be in a
better position to boycott the recalcitrant service providers. BestPrac.Org will
also use the findings to lobby such service providers to comply with the
Principles of Best Practice.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/5/prweb124906.htm