Measures to Combat Spam E-mail Announced

January 17, 2002

The Ministry of Information and Communication announced Thursday comprehensive measures against "spam" e-mail in an effort to remove unwanted mail abuse.

In the first move, MOIC decided to make direct marketing e-mail senders to "obligatorily" mark "advertisement" and "don't want to receive the same mail" in the message. For those who fail to do so, the ministry will impose a fine of up to W5 million. Advertising mail for profit, informative mail for non-profit, and adult information mail must be marked "Advertisement," "Information," and "Adults," respectively, on the subject line of an e-mail.

"Spammers" who do not identify contact numbers on purpose for e-mail receivers to be unable to express his or her will not to receive the same mail again shall be regarded as criminals. "We will build cooperative and interactive system in association with related institutes such as the prosecution, police and civic groups in order to punish those who violate the rules," said La Bong-ha, information use and protection department head of MOIC. At the same time MOIC is expanding the rule into wired and wireless phones, as mobile spam mail through SMS for cell phones is also becoming a problem.

MOIC is planning to have an individual and company suffering "mental and financial damage" to get compensation quickly through a trouble shooting committee for personal data protection. At the same time it will develop an e-mail "trouble shooting" application within the first half of this year and distribute it for free.