INZ Welcomes Anti-spam Legislation

"We believe good legislation is part of the solution to the ever growing spam problem, and support this move" said InternetNZ Vice-President David Farrar.

"Spam now makes up 65% of all e-mail, up from 7% in 2001, and the cost to internet users and providers is in the billions of dollars."

"We congratulate the Government on this announcement, which will be welcomed by the hundreds of thousands of internet users sick of spam. We wish to especially commend the Associate IT Minister David Cunliffe for the interest he has taken in this issue, and getting a decision to introduce legislation" said Mr Farrar.

InternetNZ Councillor David Harris, who is also the creator of popular e-mail program Pegasus Mail, commented that "legislation by itself will not solve the spam problem, but it is an essential component along with education, self-regulation and technical initiatives." "Legislation will be beneficial for NZ in three ways. It will allow us to deal more effectively with home grown spammers.

It will also make it less likely that spammers from overseas will seek to relocate their operations to New Zealand, and it will enable an appropriate NZ Government agency to work with overseas counterparts to track and trace the major league spammers who are responsible for most of the spam we receive." said Mr Harris.

"We look forward to working with the Government and Parliament on the details of the proposed legislation, and getting it passed into law" concluded Mr Farrar.

ENDS

For more information please contact:

David Farrar, Vice-President, InternetNZ on 027 447 0216 or david@farrar.com

David Harris, Councillor, InternetNZ on 03 453 6880 or david.harris@internetnz.net.nz

Peter Macaulay, Executive Director on 04 495 2113 or exe.dir@internetnz.net.nz

InternetNZ has an anti spam website at http://www.stopspam.net.nz