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| Sophos believes the UK legislation is unlikely to
help businesses suffering from spam |
Tomorrow - December 11 - sees the introduction of new UK
regulations to tackle the burgeoning problem of unsolicited
commercial email or spam which the UN* claims to be costing as much
as $20.5bn per year. Although Sophos, a world leader in protecting
businesses from viruses and spam, welcomes any move to reduce this
plague, it believes this legislation will be largely ineffective,
particularly for business users of email.
The UK legislation - based on EU guidelines - will mean that
unsolicited commercial email can only be sent to individual
subscribers who have granted prior permission (called 'opt in').
However, there are loopholes which will enable spammers to keep
targeting business users, clogging up their email inboxes unless
they have effective anti-spam software in place.
UK legislation is also powerless to tackle spam originating in
other countries. With the vast majority of the world's spam thought
to come from the US, and with its anti-spam laws (known as
'Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing
Act' or CAN-SPAM), taking a relatively soft stance on spammers (by
putting the onus on the recipient to opt out), Sophos believes that
the new UK legislation will not have any noticeable impact on the
volume of spam.
"The UK is taking a tougher stand against spam than some
countries, but this is toothless without buy-in from the rest of
the world," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at
Sophos. "The vast majority of spam originates from the USA, where
CAN-SPAM laws mean - you *can* spam. Spam is a global issue and
needs a global solution. Many users will be experiencing more junk
email than ever this Christmas, and a spam-filled 2004."
In addition, Sophos's statistics reveal that a third of spam is
sent from 'hijacked' innocent computers, making tracing and
prosecuting offenders rather difficult. Technology also allows
spammers to disguise their location so introducing laws on a
country-by-country basis will have little impact.
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend
businesses from the threats of both spam and viruses.
* United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) annual study, quoting data from private
research firms.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.