Australia has cracked down on junk mail with an industry code for tackling spam.
Under the new code, internet service providers (ISPs) will bear some of the responsibility for helping fight spam. Service providers must offer spam-filtering options to their subscribers and advise them on how to best deal with and report the nuisance mail. ISPs will also be compelled to impose "reasonable" limits on subscribers' sending email. more»
China's Ministry of Information Industry (MII) has published a set of regulations that govern email services and include several provisions intended to cut down on the amount of spam that Chinese Internet users find in their in-box.
The new rules go into effect on March 30. As expected, the regulations require e-mail advertisements to include "AD" or the equivalent in Chinese characters (guang gao) in the subject header. They also require email service providers to register the IP addresses of their mail servers with the authorities. more»
Companies will soon have to buy the electronic equivalent of a postage stamp if they want to be certain that their e-mail will be delivered to many of their customers. America Online and Yahoo, two of the world's largest providers of e-mail accounts, are about to start using a controversial system that gives preferential treatment to messages from companies that pay from 1/4 of a cent to a penny each to have them delivered. The senders must contact only people who have agreed to receive their messages, or risk being blocked entirely. more»
