European summit focussed on the creation and promotion of joint initiatives to leverage efforts of the private and public sectors to combat messaging abuse.

The Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG), a group of communications and technology companies committed to solving spam, viruses and other forms of messaging abuse, held a summit in Dusseldorf, Europe from June 21-23, 2005 which focussed on issues regarding messaging abuse on the Internet.

Representatives from nearly one hundred different industry groups, technology carriers & providers and government agencies joined forces at the venue to discuss and compare practices, policies and experiences from around the world. Specific focus and attention was given to the creation and promotion of joint initiatives to leverage the efforts of the private and public sectors to efficiently and effectively combat messaging abuse across political and economic boundaries.

Among other projects, MAAWG members are preparing a set of best practices, to be used by any messaging carrier to improve its overall effectiveness in addressing messaging abuse. These best practices include: restricting e-mail traffic to specifically authorized points of origin, increasing end user security by authenticating all outgoing e-mail and validation of sending e-mail addresses and systems. To facilitate their adoption and implementation, an organized effort is underway to create clear means of communication among carriers and industry watch groups in order to quickly identify zombies and correct compromised systems on their networks.

"A close working relationship with public policy organizations is equally as important as the technology and operational initiatives that MAAWG is supporting to bring about significant change in the Industry," said Dale Malik of BellSouth, MAAWG public policy co-chair. "The recent announcements by the FTC and London Action Plan are in alignment with our best practices efforts and signify the type of cooperation that is needed to bring about change. We look forward to building greater relationships with organizations like the OECD, London Action Plan, FTC, ACA, JEAG, E-COAT and national ISP associations to strengthen everyone's efforts."