South African spam summit announced

Terry Murphy, MD of Systems Publishers, which is organising the event, states that the Spam Summit will form the keystone of a widespread briefing exercise for the general public through the major media, including SABC and eTV. "While an important number of business people and marketing solution providers will be among the delegates, a strong emphasis will be placed on providing the media with a key opportunity to distribute informed communications to their various audiences, so that the fundamental messages arising from the Summit can reach as wide an audience as possible," he says.

He continues, "Spam is a significant problem for South African businesses as a recent poll we conducted across the audiences of MarketingMix and Computerweek Strategist revealed. In the marketing community, 72% of the respondents indicated that they found Spam to be problematic, ranking it more of a problem than either viruses or hacking threats. Similarly, 68% of the corporate IT directors and management readers of Computerweek Strategist indicated that they felt Spam was a problem, again raking it higher than either viruses or hacking."

The idea for the Spam Summit arose out of a public challenge issued by Matt Newnham, software product manager at local Spam control and antivirus software distibutor, Camsoft Solutions, on Business Focus on SABC3 in July, shortly after the Spam Summit held in the UK and following a number of prior interviews surrounding the subject.

Murphy explains that the Spam Summit will be targeted primarily at high-level businesses people, government, Internet solution providers, major corporates and the big users of email marketing, as well as the media. "An important objective of the Summit is to correctly position the use of electronic messaging as a medium, as well as communicating the effective preventative measures that can be taken by corporates. And, of course, it will explain the legal rights of individuals and entities, and the recourse and remedies available under South African law."

To attend the Spam Summit, contact Thiloshnee Vythilingham at Systems Publishers on (011) 789 1808. The delegate fee is R500-00 per person.