China's e-mail users may one day have to stick a cyber stamp on
their missives as the nation's Internet regulator pushes for
development of an electronic postal system.
The aim is not to raise revenue from postage charges but to
fight the increase in junk mail, according to the China Internet
Conference, the largest annual gathering for the country's Internet
industry, which concluded on Wednesday.
"We are working with several institutes on development of e-mail
stamp technology," Wang Xiujun, a member of the Anti-Spam Working
Committee under the Internet Society of China, told a forum in
Kunshan in Jiangsu Province.
"It can help filter out spam mail from the source before it is
sent out."
The e-stamp system would amount to an electronic mark implanted
within an e-mail, containing information that could be used to
identify the sender.
Ordinary users wouldn't notice any difference, as only
third-party organizations such as the anti-spam committee or
government bodies would be able to decode and trace the mailer.
The benefit for e-mail users: the e-stamp would allow their mail
to move faster through a "green passage" on the Web, and they
wouldn't need to worry about being mistakenly blocked by the
receiver.
As the technology is still under development, it is too early to
tell whether users would have to pay "postage." But the system
would increase costs for e-mail service providers and broadband
operators, said Zhang Yueping, also a member of the anti-spam
committee.
Senders of junk mail face fines up to 30,000 yuan (US$3,947),
according to an e-mail service regulation enacted in March last
year.
But the sanctions have had little effect on spammers so far, who
often change their Internet addresses and are difficult to
trace.
The anti-spam committee has set up an online reporting platform
to receive complaints and publish blacklists of Internet addresses
charged with spamming. Many small businesses are using the
aggressive, low-cost marketing strategy aimed at stuffing mail
boxes with all kinds of advertisements.
Spam mail accounted for 58 percent of all messages received by
Chinese e-mail users in the second quarter. Most of the mail
promoted online shopping, schemes to make money on the Internet,
sex toys or drugs. Those categories accounted for nearly 40 percent
of all junk messages. Even worse, 11 percent of the spam also
contained computer viruses, according to the Internet Society of
China.
Though still serious, the 58-percent figure marked a six
percentage point drop from the first quarter of 2006, the most
obvious improvement among all countries in the period, said the
ISC's Wang.
Several e-mail service providers contacted by Shanghai
Daily yesterday seeking comments on the e-stamp were
cautious.
"It should be something like a commercial alliance, but its
direction and outlook are difficult to assess at present,"
Sina.com, China's largest portal, said in a statement.
NetEase.com, China's largest e-mail service provider, declined
to comment.
"The proposal would require coordination between all the
interest groups in the e-mail industry," said the ISC's Zhang.
"They would be concerned about how to earn a return on the
additional investment."
(Shanghai Daily September 28, 2007)
