ISPA sets out anti-spam guidelines

gallery

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) has set out guidelines to help its members combat spam.

ISPA drew up the best practices recommendations and said that action is required not only from its members, but from the industry as a whole as well as the government, law enforcement agencies and end-users. It said that measures it has set out in the document should be backed up by effective laws against persistent spammers.

The association said that members should ensure email systems do not relay spam for unauthorised third parties, and should operate "appropriate arrangements for the handling of reports of abuse by their customers. Also, member should disseminate information on the action taken in regards to customers who have sent unsolicited bulk email (UBE).

ISPA Council chairwoman Jessica Hendrie-Liaño said that spam is a problem for ISPs but they are taking steps to tackle it. However, action would also be needed by customers also to secure their computers from being turned into zombies.

"Customers need to be educated on the nature of UBE, how to protect their PCs with firewalls and anti-virus software, and should also be informed of other services provided by their ISPs to help keep UBE to a minimum."

She said that spam saps valuable bandwidth, can compromise the integrity of a network and affects the performance of mail servers. "Combating spam costs ISPs and their customers very significant amounts of time and money," she said.

Email to a friend

Print this page