Brands join forces to fight spam

The memorandum of understanding, which was announced at the China Internet Conference 2004, outlines areas of technological cooperation for fighting unwanted emails and online fraud. The signatories decided to set up a legal network with police agencies to find spammers, promised to better protect consumers against spam and other unwanted internet content, and agreed to explore new spam-busting technology. They also agreed to launch a mass public promotions campaign to highlight the issue of spam. About 68 million Chinese are now online. However, about 74 per cent of the world's spam is hosted in China, according to research by anti-spam software vendor Commtouch. The study found that spam outbreaks increased 43 per cent between January and June this year. Sophie Lottefier, who heads up adma in Hong Kong, said: "Unless marketers in Asia protect the individual's right to control the type and content of information they receive, the effectiveness of the email marketing industry will remain under threat. "Studies have shown that marketers who implement permission-based campaigns generally have higher response rates and lower complaint rates and blocking issues." More than 200 companies took part at the anti-spam conference in China.