Pacific Internet and ACA team up in spam war

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 01 December 2004 22:03

IT Industry - Development

The Australian arm of NASDAQ listed ISP, Pacific Internet (Australia), has been selected by the Australian Communications Authority (ACA) to participate in what is claimed to be a world first anti-spam initiative to help catch Australian spammers.

Phil Tsakaros, Pacific Internet's national technology manager, said: "In April this year the Australian Government's anti-spam legislation, The Spam Act 2003, came into force and can see spammers fined up to $1.1 million per day for sending unsolicited commercial electronic messages. But to enforce these laws, it needs users to report incidents of spam – this is where Pacific Internet will help.

"With this simple new system, Pacific Internet customers can report spam by submitting it to the ACA's forensics database system for investigation under the anti-spam legislation. Customers can download the easy to install Outlook plug-in, called SpamMATTERS, from our non metered mirror website and with one click report spam to the ACA. Alternatively, Pacific Internet customers can go to the ACA's website and submit the spam's content via a web form," he said.

The Pacific Internet trial is designed to help the ACA refine its processes and ensure customers can easily report spam. The initiative will be made available to other ISPs in about two months.

"Like our customers, we're sick of spam. With this new initiative we're taking action and
assisting the ACA catch spammers. The end result will be a better, safer internet experience for Pacific Internet customers," said Tsakaros.

The trial will be promoted to customers via Pacific Internet's website and call centre staff will encourage customers to report incidents of spam.

"While it's impossible to stop all spam, we're dedicated to tackling it with a variety of initiatives. In addition to the work we're doing with the ACA, we were one of the first Australian internet service providers to introduce free email virus and spam filters to protect our customers and we also monitor email server traffic and investigate irregularities," said Tsakaros.