The foundation was created on April 8th 2003 in response to threats which resulted in the shutdown of the webiste by the hosting provider a month before. The activities of the Spamvrij.nl foundation were aimed at researching and analyzing spam send by Dutch organizations on one end and educating all relevant parties on the other.
The Spamvrij.nl foundation - from the start - was considered an authority on Dutch spam by third paries and after its creation, was almost immediately approached by a number of providers and companies seeking to better their anti-spam policies. Over that time the foundation consulted with dozens of agencies.
Whilst before being established, the volunteers behind spamvrij.nl were mainly concerned with investigating the spam send by Dutch organizations, the time spend on educating and assisting others grew considerably. That resulted in a deadlock: the spare time of the people behind the Spamvrij.nl foundation had its limits. They could no longer do well what they were well in: analyzing spam and tracing spammers.
The Spamvrij.nl foundation tried to recruit financial backing to continue her work. Inspite of generous donations by BIT and XS4All, the foundation could not find sufficient structural financial support to guarantee its future existance.
Because of this, the Spamvrij.nl foundation has decided to disband itself. One cannot expect the volunteers behind the foundation to permanently overwork themselves, without anything in return. With that the Spamvrij.nl foundation has succumbed to its own success. The promised donations have been declined and returned too all the generous donors.
The need for the work has however not disappeared. Spamvrij.nl realizes all too well that by investigating and publishing they provide a significant contribution to the spamfighting in The Netherlands. To retain all acquired knowledge the Spamvrij.nl project will live on and some persons will continue as private persons. The website has been handed over to them, and spam submissions are still very much welcomed.
This solution removes a number of - at present staturory - tasks from the remaining people, like lobbying, educating and the like. The funds that remain after the disbandment of the foundation will be made available to the volunteers that will continue with spamvrij.nl.
From now on Spamvrij.nl will concentrate mainly on investigating and analyzing spam sent by Dutch organizations and will assist CERTs, abusedesks of providers and officers of the law to the best of its capabilities.