(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today applauded the announcement of industry recommendations aimed at reducing junk emails by the Anti-Spam Technical Alliance (ASTA) at a press conference yesterday.

“Tuesday’s announcement is a prime example of private sector collaboration in solving today’s technological concerns,” CAGW President Tom Schatz said.  “This news, combined with the recent report by the Federal Trade Commission to Congress indicating it would not implement a do-not-email registry, is a strong indication as to why the government should stay out of the business of regulating technology.  The private sector can always do a better job of providing and implementing innovative solutions.”

Studies indicate that spam costs both the private and public sectors billions of dollars and valuable time.  According to Ferris Research, U.S. and European corporations spent a total of $11.4 billion on spam in 2002, or $14 per worker per month.  The costs include “low productivity, consumption of information technology, and help-desk support.”  Based on the numbers by Ferris Research, CAGW calculated the cost of spam to the federal government.  With 1.7 million federal workers at the rate of $168 per year, taxpayers paid $285.6 million for spam in 2003.

“While the federal government is typically slow to respond to the needs of taxpayers, spam is making the problem worse,” Schatz continued.  “The effort to reduce spam will increase productivity by government workers, help reduce costs to taxpayers, and raise output in the private sector.”

ASTA members include Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., EarthLink, and American Online Inc.  The group worked for more than a year to develop industry recommendations that if implemented will go a long way toward reducing unwanted, intrusive spam.  The suggestions focus on eliminating email forgery and preventing Internet Service Providers’ customers from being the source of spam.

“As technology advances, spammers will always find new ways to infiltrate email accounts.  The private sector can better adapt to these changes, while still allowing legitimate mass emailers to function.  Government intervention would hinder such productivity,” Schatz concluded.  “As a result of ASTA’s recommendations, I look forward to the day when everyone can turn on their computer and go straight to work-related emails without having to stop and delete spam.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.