The memorandum of understanding, designed to make law enforcement against the most serious of spam operations easier, was signed by each country’s respective fair trade, consumer protection and competition watchdogs.
In a joint announcement Friday, the three nations said they will share information, cooperate in detecting and investigating spam violations, cooperate in tracking spammers, exchange evidence, facilitate law enforcement against spam violators, and coordinate enforcement against cross-border spam violations.
With most spam coming from outside the UK this deal forges our individual initiatives together and puts the fight against spam on a global footing, said UK communications minister Stephen Timms. It’s not going to solve spam overnight but it is going to help.
The MoU will only require cooperation between the countries when the spamming is prohibited by a country’s Commercial Email Laws that is substantially similar to conduct prohibited by the Commercial Email Laws of the other countries.
In other words, the MoU takes a lowest common denominator approach that means Australia and the US will only have to cooperate with the UK, which has an opt-in spam law, when the spam in question violates their weaker opt-out laws.
The UK is bound by a European Union directive that says people cannot be spammed unless they have consented to receive such material. The US and Australia permit spam but ban deceptive practices and require opt-out links.
The MoU names four areas of agreement on what kind of spammer will be tackled – those using deceptive content, spoofed headers, no opt-out, and those who continue to spam after the victim has requested them to stop.
Recent statistics from Commtouch Software Inc indicate that about 55% of spam comes from the US. Most of the rest comes from South Korea, China, Brazil and Canada. The UK sends about 1%. Australia doesn’t figure in the top ten.
The MoU also envisages increased cooperation with other countries. The UK’s OFT will host a meeting of consumer protection watchdogs from about 30 countries on October 11 in London to talk about spam enforcement issues, and training regulators in locating and investigating spammers.
The MoU was signed by the Department of Trade and Industry, Office of Fair Trading and the Information Commissioner in the UK, the US Federal Trade Commission, and Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission, and the Australian Communications Authority.
