International internet spring clean

OFT after the spammers

Dinah Greek

The Office of Fair Trading has kicked off this year's annual 48-hour global assault on scammers infesting the internet.

With the UK this year holding the presidency of the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN), the OFT organised the annual sweep of rogue traders on the internet.

Advertisement

This year's annual spring clean targeted scammers as per usual but predominantly focused on how frauds are spread by spam. This now accounts for over 70 per cent of all e-mail traffic on the internet and is frequently linked to fraudulent, deceptive or pornographic commercial activities.

So under the banner, Spams, Scams and Scams by Spam, ICPEN hopes to have as much success as it did last year, when it targeted websites offering consumers deals that were "To good to be true".

Then the focus then was on sites offering work-at-home schemes, lottery scams, pyramid schemes, get-rich-quick schemes, prize or free offers and educational offers. After this investigation, the OFT alone found 234 breaches of UK law, including the Distance Selling regulations and deceptive advertising by UK websites; around the world hundreds of websites offering fraudulent offers were closed.

With the emphasis this year on spam however, ICPEN also had the back up of authorities in the 15 countries that had signed up last October to the OFT's anti-spam London Action Plan (LAP). This anti spam initiitave brings together the relevant anti spam authorities around the world.

The relevant authorities are spending the 48 hours sifting through spam.

  • Have your say
  • Send to a friend
  • Print
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Share

Tags:

Do you agree?

Related whitepapers

Related jobs

Most watched

Xperia X1

Video Review: Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

First Looks Editor Ian Williams gets hands on with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

HTC Hero

Video: HTC Hero launch

Handset maker unveils its latest Android-based smartphone

IT white papers

Search white papers

Top categories

Poll

Poll: Summer smartphones

Poll: Summer smartphones

Which smartphone will you be taking to the beach this summer?

View poll results

Advertisement

Advertisement

Newsletter signup

Sign up for our range of FREE newsletters:

Existing User

Newsletter user login:

Enter email address to edit your newsletter preferences

Job of the week

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Hiring now on ComputingCareers:

Related IT jobs

Search thousands of IT jobs :

Search thousands of IT jobs:

Advanced search

Spotlight

firefox logo

In Pictures: Firefox 3.5

Screenshots from Mozilla's latest Firefox web browser

BT

BT scraps Phorm rollout

Telco claims to be too tight on resources to support...

Nokia

Nokia denies Android smartphone rumours

Mobile phone giant insists it will stick with Symbian

Second Life

Second Life seeks to mix the real and virtual worlds

Linden Lab unveils plans to integrate with social networks and...

Primary Navigation