'Developing nations drowning in spam deluge'

Developing countries are being overwhelmed with spam - a situation that threatens to widen the global digital divide, according to a new report.

Countries such as Malaysia, Nepal and Nigeria lack the bandwidth, technical know-how and financial resources to effectively combat junk email, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in the report, released last week (click here for PDF).

As a result, web users in those nations endure more outages and less reliable overall service than people in more developed countries, the Paris-based international economic think tank said.

The report, which was written by Suresh Ramasubramanian, an OECD advisor and postmaster for Outblaze.com, states: "Spam is a much more serious issue in developing countries... as it is a heavy drain on resources that are scarcer and costlier in developing countries than elsewhere."

In addition, more spammers are setting up shop in less-developed countries as authorities and internet service providers in the United States and Europe crack down on them. As ISPs in developing nations harbour more spammers, those providers increasingly land on international "block lists". That jams up email services for their customers - spammers and regular web users alike.

"Whatever the rationale behind large-scale blocking, it is a fact of life that is all too familiar to most ISPs in developing economies," the report noted.

In countries with a single ISP providing email services, landing on a block list can cut the entire country off from email access. That's just what happened in Costa Rica a few years ago, when anti-spam campaign group Spamhaus blocked email from the country for two whole days.

Individuals and businesses in developing countries, as elsewhere, often bear the worst of the spam burden. In addition, many web users in those places rely on dial-up and pay-per-minute services at cyber cafes, making junk email all the more frustrating, the report said.

"All this effort and expense is completely wasted when the user finds that the downloaded emails are to a large extent random spam or viruses," the report states.

The OECD report also outlined a number of recommendations to improve the spam situation in developing nations. It urges ISPs in those countries to invest in spam-filter technology or in third-party filtering, and to adopt strong anti-spam policies.

The group also recommended that countries set up computer emergency response teams to co-ordinate responses to major incidents and vulnerabilities. It also calls on ISPs around the globe to assist each other in the fight against spam.

This week, the US Federal Trade Commission announced it is linking up with counterparts abroad to combat zombie networks used by spammers. The different agencies plan to put pressure on ISPs to spot offending members and to cut those computers off their networks.

Alorie Gilbert writes for CNET News.com