Per 31 October 2003 spamming
will be prohibited in all EU member states, but
it is completely unclear what authority should
supervise the spam-ban. The European Commission
doesn't have a ready-made answer, and is
currently asking privacy-authorities and
telecommunications ministries what approach they
prefer.
The new Privacy Directive prohibits the sending
of unsolicited e-mail but doesn't regulate the
practicalities of penalties, damage claims or
prosecution of cross-border violations. To make
matters even more complicated, the Directive
leaves the level of privacy protection of legal
persons up to member states. Therefore, in some
countries all e-mail addresses will be
protected, in other states the spam-ban is
limited to natural persons. On top of that, the
directive bans commercial spam, but does allow
for a ban on all unsolicited electronic
communications, including those for charity and
political purposes.
Seven EU member states already have anti-spam
legislation; Austria, Denmark, Germany, Finland,
Greece, Italy and Spain. In Europe-at-large,
spam is also banned in Hungary and Norway.
Punishments differs widely. In Austria for
example, spammers can be fined to a maximum of
36.330 Euro, while in Italy spammers risk prison
sentence, next to the obligation to pay damages
of 500 to 5000 euro per spammail.
Answers to the questionnaire from DG Infosoc
should be in by 28 February 2003. Based on the
answers, the European Commission will probably
produce a guideline for recommended practice.
Most likely, direct marketers will lobby for
self-regulation, leaving it up to the industry
to punish itself. EDRI opposes such a soft
approach, and strongly recommends the
institution of a European hotline for spam, to
solve the problem of having to find out where
the spam was sent from. This should not be left
up to individual citizens, nor should they have
to instigate cross-border procedures themselves.
Previous initiatives by the Belgian and French
data-protection authorities to open up a
national spam-box showed immense public
interest. The Belgian authority even closed its
mailbox after 2 months, after having received
50.000 spams. As well-intended as it was, they
were inundated with identical spams. To
withstand the spam-deluge, more is needed, like
a dedicated transnational institute, with smart
automatic processing of spams, a searchable
public database and professionally trained
staff.
