The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Internet Society are teaming up to combat the internet’s most annoying element of communications, spam.
The bane of most inboxes, spam now accounts for a significant amount of all global emails and presents particular difficulties in areas where bandwidth is insufficient to handle the congestion spam creates.
“Combating the growing menace of spam and the protection of data is a global concern for legitimate internet and smartphone users,” said Dr Hamadoun I Touré, ITU’s secretary-general.
“We need to find global solutions to curtail the flow of intrusive junk mail which not only clogs up the internet but also carries huge cost implications.”
Under a new agreement, the Internet Society and the ITU telecommunication development sector (ITU-D) will identify the best ways to build long-term capacity for addressing spam in developing countries.
“The costs associated with spam related to wasted bandwidth, storage and network infrastructure, as well as increased security risks, are amplified in developing regions,” said Kathy Brown, CEO of the Internet Society.
The organisations have agreed to focus their efforts on three particular areas.
They will look at facilitating greater regional access to technical experts from the global internet community who can share anti-spam knowledge and experiences on an on-going basis.
They will provide educational training and information on effective anti-spam policies, technical solutions and operational requirements. And finally they will look at documenting anti-spam best practices.
Spam image via Shutterstock
