Internet service providers (ISPs) have a responsibility to do more to inform their customers about inappropriate or potentially dangerous web sites, according to a leading security vendor.

Keith Bird, European managing director of unified threat management specialist SonicWall, told IT Week that ISPs are in a perfect position to build up lists of dangerous URLs based on feedback from customers.

“We have a service where customers can advise us about inappropriate web sites; there’s no reason why ISPs couldn’t have a similar service,” he argued. “They are touching so many people that they could build up a tremendous list of sites and could offer this as a service.”

But Bird stopped short of calling for service providers to carry out content inspection themselves and be more proactive in preventing spam reaching their customers’ inboxes, as he argued this approach could lead to legitimate messages failing to reach their intended recipient.

“The success of the internet is that it’s open and it would be wrong to regulate it,” he said. “One person’s spam is another person’s [email] marketing.”