EU and Asia unite against spammers
European and Asian countries agreed to unite in the fight against spam at the conclusion of an ecommerce conference in London this week. Government participants attending an Asia-Europe (ASEM) conference on ecommerce issued a joint statement pledging to tackle the junk mail menace.
ASEM's 25 European and 13 Asian member countries will take action to fight spam nationally and promote anti-spam efforts by international organisations and by industry. ASEM members include China and South Korea, reckoned to be the source of one-in-five spam emails. Recruiting these countries as allies in the fight against spam (which accounts for 60 per cent of all email traffic, according to estimates) is seen as a major step forward.
"The EU cannot act alone in the fight against spam as it is essentially borderless," said Viviane Reding, EU information society and media Commissioner. "It is crucial that the problem be taken seriously in every part of the world and in particular in regions where a lot of spam is reported to originate."
