International internet spring clean

The Office of Fair Trading has kicked off this year's annual 48-hour global assault on scammers infesting the internet.

With the UK this year holding the presidency of the International Consumer Protection Enforcement Network (ICPEN), the OFT organised the annual sweep of rogue traders on the internet.

This year's annual spring clean targeted scammers as per usual but predominantly focused on how frauds are spread by spam. This now accounts for over 70 per cent of all e-mail traffic on the internet and is frequently linked to fraudulent, deceptive or pornographic commercial activities.

So under the banner, Spams, Scams and Scams by Spam, ICPEN hopes to have as much success as it did last year, when it targeted websites offering consumers deals that were "To good to be true".

Then the focus then was on sites offering work-at-home schemes, lottery scams, pyramid schemes, get-rich-quick schemes, prize or free offers and educational offers. After this investigation, the OFT alone found 234 breaches of UK law, including the Distance Selling regulations and deceptive advertising by UK websites; around the world hundreds of websites offering fraudulent offers were closed.

With the emphasis this year on spam however, ICPEN also had the back up of authorities in the 15 countries that had signed up last October to the OFT's anti-spam London Action Plan (LAP). This anti spam initiitave brings together the relevant anti spam authorities around the world.

The relevant authorities are spending the 48 hours sifting through spam.