An empirical study on anti-spam legislation

Spam is one of the most serious information security issues. It has a role as a potential propagator of vicious attacks such as viruses and phishing. The proportion of spam email has constantly been above 80% of the total email traffic in the world. Although national governments and international agencies agree that effective anti-spam laws should be enacted, there have been few studies investigating the effects of spam-reducing policies around the world. The aim of our research is to examine whether the enacted antispam policy based on the "opt-in" approach in South Korea can effectively decrease the number of spam messages originating from South Korea. Our preliminary findings show that the national spam policy of South Korea has had a significant effect on reducing the volume of spam. This study proposes a novel idea in making the potential origins of cybercrime responsible for the consequences.