Spam overload is costing Hong Kong's economy an estimated HK$10 billion a year and companies HK$6.8 billion in lost productivity.

Research commissioned by the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association (HKISPA) finds that the average employee has 4.2 "sick days" per year due to spam-related absenteeism. The situation is getting so bad that many Internet users want service providers to act while others believe that legislation may be the only way to curb the problem.

According to speakers at the "Dam the Spam Forum" on June 25, there may be no easy solution to the problem.

"Legislating solves part of the problem. It will not solve the entire problem," John Tsang, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology, said after the forum. "Only 5 percent of the spam originates from Hong Kong. Even if we legislate locally, which may provide a deterrent from spam-mers from using Hong Kong as the place of origin, it will not solve the 90 percent of the problem."

He suggested international collaboration would be necessary to erase spammers around the globe, otherwise the problem will never be able to be entirely solved. Mr Tsang also cautioned that legislation also ran the risk of harming legitimate businesses.

"That's why whatever measure we come up with, it's got to be a balanced one that on the one hand, we could eliminate a lot of the unnecessary business cost that arises from spam. On the other hand we will not provide a deterrent for legitimate businesses to do business through telecommunications means," he said.

Director General of Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) M H Au, said at the forum that is why his office started consultations on the issue on June 25 to see if businesses really believe that legislation will do more good than harm.

The European Union and the U.S. have adopted a system whereby people who receive spam can opt-out of spammers' emailing lists, whereas Australia has gone for an opt-in system so that marketers can only send emails to those who have asked to receive them. Both systems have their pros and cons and have exemption lists, such as political parties, governments and charities, among others.

"From the government's point of view, we need to get views from the community, we need to assess the impact that an opt-in and an opt-out option would have on business operations," Mr Au said. "We need to find a solution that would be effective without imposing an undue burden on legitimate businesses."

While agreeing that legislation is necessary to fight spam, Sin Chung Kai, Legislative Councillor (IT), said technological solutions, anti-spam legislation and self-regulatory approaches would all be needed to fight the problem.

"The best way to stop spam is to use enforced legislation combined with advanced anti-spam technologies. The government, industry and our society have to reach a consensus on the approach to stopping the spread of spam," he said.

ISPs' responsibility?

But shouldn't Internet service providers (ISPs) themselves be doing more to do something to stop the deluge of junk e-mails that their users are receiving?

York Mok, Chairman of HKISPA, said that around 40 percent of the 500 complaints that Hong Kong's ISPs receive every month are spam related. Service providers claim they have implemented self-built blacklists and imposed limits on the amount of mail their users can send, but all concede these have not been very effective in blocking the rising tide of spam.

ISPs believe the most effective way to curb the problem would be through a shared blacklist and legislation.

ISPs say the spam filters that they offer to customers can filter out about 80 percent of spam without accidentally deleting legitimate emails. However, according to research by HKISPA, their efforts to deal with spam costs them collectively an estimated HK$3 million per month.

Spiralling cost to business

Jeff Bullwinkel, Director of Corporate Affairs, Far East, Microsoft Corporation, says spam is destroying the value of email for consumers and businesses worldwide, as well as eroding customer trust in technology.

According to the findings of research firm IDC, businesses often underestimate just how much money they are losing through spam.

"For organisations without anti-spam solutions, the average amount of time lost by email users each day due to spam is 10 minutes, including time spent reviewing emails to identify which are spam and possibly tracking down valid emails that may have been deleted by users or IT by mistake," the company's white paper on spam stated.

It also points out that costs of spam go beyond time lost by users. Time is also lost when IT personnel are required to deal with spam because they lack an anti-spam solution. Storage costs also weigh into the picture and vary by organisation size.

In Hong Kong, nearly 70 percent of Internet users use some sort of anti-spam measures, which block about 80 percent of unwanted emails. Given the growing tide of spam, however, the effectiveness of these filters is decreasing.

"While many organisations have implemented solutions, the battle with spam rages on and at a significant cost to organ-isations," said Alyn Hockey, Director of Research at online security firm Clearswift. "Given that spammers are increasingly sophisticated in their techniques, it is critical that organisations look at all the facets of assessing and selecting a robust anti-spam solution."

But not everything is bad news in the battle against spam. IDC notes that anti-spam solutions reduce the average amount of time spent on spam by email users by 50 percent -- that translates to a cost savings of HK$53,460 per year for a 30-user company.

Dam the Spam Forum

Spam overload is costing Hong Kong's economy an estimated HK$10 billion a year and companies HK$6.8 billion in lost productivity. Research commissioned by the Hong Kong Internet Service Providers Association (HKISPA) finds that the average employee has 4.2 'sick day' per year due to spam-related absenteeism. Speakers at the "Dam the Spam Forum" on June 25 search for possible solutions to the problem.