China has joined the international effort to combat spam.Reckoned to be the world's third largest producer of spam email, it has signed up to the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration.

China will create the Union Network Beijing body as its representative under the London Action Plan and will endeavour to support international co-operation in the war against spam. It will also increase training to improve investigative work and establish points of contact across various agencies to improve their effectiveness and speed of response.

UK E-Commerce Minister Alun Michael described the announcement as the result of months of negotiation. "China engaged constructively in the Asia-Europe Meeting on E-Commerce in London in February. Now, as China reaches the 100m Internet users mark, we welcome this opportunity to work with China to make the Internet safer for users," he said.

"During our Presidency of the EU and beyond, we will continue to intensify our activities with Chinese and other partners to address spam and viruses, and therefore contribute to the continued development and safety of the global information society."

However, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at UK security firm Sophos, warned that tackling spam in China may simply do no more than shift operations elsewhere: "After the USA and South Korea, China is one of the biggest producers of spam in the world, and greater global co-operation in tackling the scourge has to be welcomed. [But] even if the authorities crack down hard on those using Chinese computers to use spam and sell spam-marketed goods, there are likely to be other countries which the spammers will turn to flog their wares."

"Computer users need to be aware that the fight isn't over - and they're unlikely to see the amount of spam they're receiving dry up overnight. The best way to defend yourself is to either run anti-spam software or pressure your ISP to offer industrial strength protection against spam and viruses," he said.





Matt Whipp


The article is taken from the Monday 4th July Edition of PC Pro Online.