The European Commission is considering rules that would increase
internet privacy and has proposed the banning of spam, or
unsolicited commercial e-mail. The proposal is to extend certain
existing rules of data protection to unsolicited e-mail and
mobiles.
An E-commerce Directive was passed on 4th May 2000 but is not
yet in force in Member States, which have until January 2002 to
implement its provisions in their domestic laws. Under this law,
unsolicited commercial e-mail must be clearly and unequivocally
identifiable as such as soon as received by the recipient, i.e. in
the header of the e-mail.
The new proposal goes further, saying that companies must not
send spam to an e-mail address unless the owner of that address has
opted-in to receive such communications.
Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen acknowledged
that opting-out of e-mailing lists is often difficult, adding that
the problems of how to enforce an opt-in approach still need to be
addressed.
Although the US does not have a blanket ban on e-mail spam,
there is a bill in Congress which would make it a criminal act to
send a solicitation to a mobile phone or other wireless device
without the owner’s express permission, i.e. unless they
opt-in.
Another bill in the US seeks to ban traditional spam, but its
progress through the legislature has been delayed by First
Amendment (freedom of speech) concerns. Instead, the US courts have
looked at the harm caused by spam, such as the cost of the
transmissions to ISPs, to find the senders liable under other
laws.
