WASHINGTON — It's the start of an Interpol for the Internet.
The Federal Trade Commission soon will go global in its hunt for spammers, phishers and other online scammers. President Bush signed a bill Friday that gives the commission broader authority to pursue e-crooks in other countries.
The FTC had pushed for more than three years for the new powers, which will help it shut down scammers such as the polite Nigerians who e-mail thousands of people a day with tales of woe and promises of riches to those kind enough to help. Those e-mails can be more than just an annoyance: A 76-year-old Florida woman reportedly lost $42,000 in the scam this year.
Increasingly, people operating e-mail scams or launching attacks with secretive programs that can steal personal information operate from Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and other foreign locations.
Sometimes they simply route their efforts through computer servers in multiple countries to make it more difficult for authorities to track them down.
"By the very nature of online commerce, you can be located anywhere in the world and transact business anywhere in the world," said Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Commerce has gone global and so fraud follows."
But the FTC said it had been hindered in such probes by legal barriers preventing it from sharing information with foreign countries or assisting them in their own investigations.
"Though scams may be borderless, in many instances, the FTC's ability to share information and take action are limited by geographic boundaries," the commission wrote in a 32-page report to Congress in 2005.
The legislation gives the FTC abilities similar to those granted in the 1990s to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to share information with foreign counterparts. In that sense, it's similar to Interpol, the international organization that helps coordinate police efforts in different countries.
Specifically, the US SAFE WEB Act -- which stands for Undertaking Spam, Spyware, And Fraud Enforcement With Enforcers beyond Borders -- gives the FTC the legal authority to share confidential information from its own investigations with foreign law enforcement authorities and assist them in their cases.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.), originally passed the Senate unanimously in March. The House changed it slightly and both chambers passed it by voice vote Dec. 9.
