Three major free email account providers have announced that they will work together in an attempt to fight spam - a move that could benefit firms struggling to keep junk email off their networks.

In a statement, Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo said that they will co-operate to reduce the ability of spammers to use their email services to send spam. They also announced plans to work together to define best practices for anti-spam email account policies and to eliminate the ability to create fraudulent email accounts.

The companies said that this would be the first step in their plans to help industry to combat spam. They will begin by focusing on their own means of blocking spam.

They will start by tackling the issue of spammers using misleading email headers that could fool recipients, and they will work to prevent open relays, routers and open proxies from being used by spammers. The companies will also strive to restrict the sending of mail that uses concealment techniques to disguise the senders.

The trio also aim to prevent users from creating bulk, fraudulent email accounts, and intend to set up a system for consumers to contact email providers directly with complaints. They will also draw up a list of best practices for email account providers. But they said that to stop spam completely would require a combination of technology, consumer education, laws and enforcement.

There is a lot of activity in this area. In the US the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has just held a forum to discuss the best methods for countering the growth of spam. The FTC has invited comments from consumers, email marketers, anti-spammers, internet service providers, spam -filter operators, email technology professionals, consumer groups, and law enforcement officials. More information is available at the web address below.

In the UK, Derek Wyatt MP has called for a worldwide body to be set up to tackle the growing problem of spam. Wyatt said that the spam problem was so "monster" that it needed a world body to oversee and devise legislation. "If 90 percent of spam comes from outside of the EU then any European rules are powerless," he explained.

Companies are facing an increasing amount of spam. According to anti-spam company Brightmail, the amount of pornographic spam has increased by 380 percent since November 2001, when it was five percent of all spam - that figure has now risen to 19 percent. Brightmail filters more than 55 billion messages each month for spam and estimates that 45 percent of them are unsolicited junk email.

Brightmail's chief executive, Enrique Salem, said, "Consumers should demand protection from this increasingly intrusive and offensive junk email and ISPs are the logical point of protection."

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