Spam refers to bulk unsolicited e-mail messages or news articles sent via electronic mail without the recipients' prior request or consent. Examples are unsolicited commercial e-mail messages and the posting of an identical news article individually to many newsgroups.

First, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do not charge on the basis of the number of e-mails sent, meaning that a "spammer" needs not pay extra cost for sending out large quantities of spam. Second, e-mails on Internet can reach people all over the world simultaneously, making spam a means of low-cost direct marketing.

Every time a "spammer" sends out e-mail spam, the entire Internet community has to bear the cost, in particular the recipients and the ISPs at the receiving end. Internet users are paying for their Internet access time by the minute, so they are forced to spend extra online time and, therefore, money in downloading unwanted e-mail spam. Spam also ties up bandwidth and resources on computers and routers all over the Internet. Every unwanted e-mail message adds to the total cost of operating the networks of computers which form the Internet. Spam can disrupt a network by crashing mail servers and filling up hard drives. Spam also constitutes an invasion of Internet users' online privacy.

At present there is no law to prohibit the sending of spam. The Government encourages the Internet industry to exercise self-regulation in tackling spamming activities. Almost all ISPs in Hong Kong have included terms in their contracts of service to prohibit subscribers from using the ISPs' services for spamming activities. Depending on the policy of individual ISPs, a spammer will be warned or will have the service suspended or terminated immediately without warning.

The use of personal data for sending out e-mail spam for direct marketing purposes might be regulated by section 34 of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. This requires that the sender should provide the recipient with an "opt-out" choice of not receiving further marketing e-mails. Enquiries on compliance issues in relation to the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance may be made to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data, Unit 2001, 20/F, Office Tower, Convention Plaza, 1 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Hong Kong.
Hotline: 2827 2827. Fax: 2877 7026. E-mail: pco@pco.org.hk.

Spammers can create their potential target lists by scanning Usenet postings, stealing mailing lists, searching Web sites or Internet Relay Chat sites for e-mail addresses. The gathering of such information is facilitated by automated software packages which have been designed for spamming across different Internet service environment.

Anyone who has your e-mail address can send you e-mails through the Internet. So, you need to be careful to whom you are giving your e-mail address. There are some practical precautions to avoid disclosing your e-mail address:

Whenever you fill out Web registration forms, surveys and other online documents, avoid typing in your e-mail address unless you are confident that the recipient would not use the e-mail address information for spamming activities. Some Web sites sell e-mail addresses to bulk mailing companies. However, for Web sites designed for downloading on-trial software or shareware, they might require you to give your true e-mail address such that they can contact you in case of bugs found or future upgrades of the distributed software. It is at your personal discretion to consider whether to obtain a copy of the free software or to risk disclosing your e-mail address. The same consideration applies to the e-mail directory sites, which help people on the Internet to easily find you.

Do not use the address of the e-mail-box you most frequently use when posting to Usenet. Many ISPs allow you to set up multiple mailboxes within your account. If you would like to post messages to Usenet, use one of these other mailboxes as your proxy e-mail address. Spam or unwanted e-mails sent to this proxy address can safely be ignored.

Alternatively, you can post the modified form of your e-mail address, for example, "john@isp.com.hk" modified to john@isp.remove_this_when_reply.com.hk" such that human participants of Usenet can sensibly send e-mail to you by appropriately modifying the e-mail address. Most spammers use automated e-mail software to collect e-mail addresses from Usenet newsgroups; modifying your e-mail address this way can frustrate such "harvest" software.

If you are subscribing to a mailing list, anyone on the same list can easily have access to your e-mail address by issuing a simple command via e-mail to display nearly every address on the list. In this case, send a request to the list administrator asking him or her to shield your e-mail address from such postings.

Do not reply or complain by simply clicking the reply button. Most likely, the reply address is forged. If you complain to that e-mail address, or the ISP which provides such e-mail address, you are more likely to be tricked by the spammer to waste your time (and the victim ISP and user's time) to complain to the wrong party. Seek help from your ISP if you want to find out the real person sending you the spam.

Unless you are confident that the spam organization is trustworthy, do not accept their offer to remove your e-mail address from their spam list and send them a request for such removal. Most likely, such a request is either ignored or worse, ends up as a confirmation that your e-mail address is valid, and subject it to promotion to a premier spam list.

8. Is there any software that can help me to block or screen out spam at the user side?

Yes. One of the most effective ways to control spam is using protective softwares known as filters. While you cannot stop people from sending out spam to you with anti-spam filters, you can stop the messages from showing up in your inbox and have them deleted automatically. Filters allow you to easily block any e-mail messages carrying specified address, domain, subject, or text from being deposited in your inbox. A number of these filtering tools are currently available on the market.

On the technical side, currently it is not a cost-effective option to screen out spam at the ISP level using filtering schemes. The mail server of your ISP handles a large amount of incoming mails per minute and filtering consumes vast amounts of processing time. This is the primary reason most ISPs cannot implement it as a strategy for eliminating spam. Another reason is that the ISP may need to scan the contents of the e-mails to determine if a message is considered a spam. Doing so without prior consent from the user is a violation of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. A better and more effective approach is to use filtering at the user side.

You can send a complaint to the ISP whose mail server originated the spam. You can identify that ISP by checking the message header. Headers allow one to trace an e-mail message from its origin to destination.

If you cannot figure out the name of the originating mail server, you can pass the entire e-mail message including the full header to the postmaster of your ISP. Your ISP will be able to identify the foreign host and will pass a request to the foreign ISP mail server to take appropriate actions against the spammer.
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For questions on ways to handle spam, you may contact the helpdesk or postmaster of your ISP.

If you have identified the ISP whose mail server originated the spam (e.g. "ispnamehere.com"), you can lodge a complaint to this e-mail address "abuse@ispnamehere.com" and request the ISP to take appropriate actions against the spammer.

For general enquiries about spam, please address to:
Office of the Telecommunications Authority 29/F, Wu Chung House, 213 Queen's Road East Wanchai, Hong Kong
Telephone: 2961 6333
Facsimile: 2803 5110
E-mail: consumer@ofta.gov.hk