The federal Minister for Information Technology and Communications, Senator Richard Alston, conceded in an exclusive interview with ZDNet Australia the Government was finding it tough to act against spam, dampening speculation heightened by comments made in a recent review of government progress against its information technology targets.
The review, released on 22 November, stated that a report into spam presently being prepared by the National Office of the Information Economy was "likely to result in recommendations on awareness raising, technical measures and possibly legislative action".
However, Senator Alston said he was still waiting for the NOIE report and pointed out he had originally sought to receive it 12 months ago.
Senator Alston said the government recognised the cost and productivity burden that has resulted from the spam epidemic and blamed the relatively low cost of sending junk e-mail for the bulk of the problem. However, he said its options to combat the problem were limited.
"I mean apart from people wringing their hands about the issue, I don't recall offhand any specific proposals that people are saying we could easily implement that will dramatically reduce the problem," he said.
"It is incredibly cheap for someone to disseminate spam to thousands of recipients who don't want it. It's cost-free and that's always a problem. If there's a pain threshold it's much easier".
Senator Alston said the Government is wary of implementing a solution that might cause more problems than it solves.
"Is it something that the government must step in and do something about? If it's interfering with the critical infrastructure I suppose yes, but if it's interfering with normal commerce - well you do what you can. But you don't want draconian solutions that are worse than the problem. It's a nuisance at the moment but if it started to clog up the system then we might have a very different view".
Click here to read ZDNet Australia's exclusive interview with Senator Alston.
"if it started to clog up the system".....
I take it that Minister Alston does not have an email account. Either that, or more likely, others read his email pass on anything that is relevant to him.
In this day and age it is hard to find an email system that is not clogged up with spam.