The administrative body in charge of the Internet's mapping of IP addresses says it has sent compliance letters to registrars commonly used by spammers, although it admits it can do little to stop spam itself.

ICANN's comments came in response to a widely circulated report by anti-spam group KnujOn -- which spelled backwards reads, "no junk." It found that 90% of all illegal sites tracked by the organization have their URLs marshaled by just 20 registrars.

KnujOn published the top ten list of the worst offenders, and the top three all came from China. The fourth place registrar came from Germany, and American companies rounded out the list. On a positive note, most of the entries were fairly unknown companies.

eNom, the second largest registrar, and Moniker, the eighth largest, were the two biggest names on the list.

In a statement, ICANN said that it had already contacted five of the ten on the list, and then went on to contact the remaining five after its own investigation. The letters addressed issues with incorrect WHOIS information and "community concern" issues.

"First off, ICANN does not have contractual authority to address spam related issues," spokesperson Jason Keenan told BetaNews. "However, if someone reports that the Whois information associated with that domain name is inaccurate, the registrar managing that domain is obligated to investigate the Whois inaccuracy claim."

Keenan explained that ICANN is not necessarily going after the spam per se, but rather the contractual obligation of registrars to investigate claims of inaccuracy.

The organization says it sends out about 75 enforcement notices per month due to community complaints. With the Internet having grown exponentially, ICANN says that it has to rely on the broader community of users to report inaccurate data.