The European Parliament has failed to reach a decision on a
proposal for a directive on the processing of personal data and the
protection of privacy in electronic communications. The draft
Telecommunications and Data Protection Directive had included
provisions for the possibility of banning of unsolicited commercial
e-mail, better known as spam.
The draft legislation would have banned all sending of spam unless
consumers agreed to receive it by consenting to an ‘opt in’ clause.
This ‘opt in’ clause approach was opposed by some individual member
states, including the UK, who argued that consumers should specify
if they do not want to receive spam, this being the ‘opt out’
approach.
Despite voting to support the ‘opt-in’ approach, the Parliament
voted to reject the legislation as a whole. The proposals will now
be sent back to the European Parliaments Committee for Citizens’
Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs for a
re-drafting.
Back in July, this Committee, voted to give individual Member
States the freedom to choose between “opt-in” and “opt-out” schemes
for dealing with unsolicited mail. This was a decision which was
seen to leave open the possibility for spam to be sent to some EU
citizens without prior permission, provided that they were given
the opportunity to ask to be removed from mailing lists.
