EU to Require Opt-In for Commercial Email

D4C5CE writes "EuroCAUCE (Usenet message below) and Heise (in German) report that the European Parliament has voted to ban spam by adopting the "opt-in" system for unsolicited commercial email, finally freeing the way for the entry into force of a "European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector". The news of the parliamentary U-turn comes after a recommendation by the "Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs" to permit "opt-out" marketing had received critical coverage, causing countless spam victims world-wide to alert the Members of the European Parliament to the big mistake they were about to make, and it is hoped to become the useful precedent of a workable approach for US lawmakers currently evaluating means to regulate spam as well." The Parliament's daily notebook has an overview. Individual EU countries still have to implement this with legislation before it is effective.

From: Beebit <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email, talk.politics.european-union
Subject: European Parliament Supports 'Opt-In' for Commercial Email
Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:08:11 +0200

The European Parliament has decided to accept the Council's Common Position which would require senders of advertisements by "electronic mail" to have the recipient's prior consent. "Electronic mail" is defined broadly enough so as to include text messaging systems based on mobile telephony in addition to email.

The 'opt-in' requirement for electronic mail will be in Article 13, Paragraph 1 of the new Directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector which will enter into force following its publication in the Official Journal. The Directive will guide the enactment of legislation throughout the European Economic Area, which includes the 15 EU Member States and European Free Trade Association members Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein. EU Members Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, and Italy as well as EFTA member Norway had already implemented 'opt-in' in their national legislation.

Further provisions in the same Article would allow companies to send advertising via email for their own products or services of a similar category to addresses which they had obtained in the course of a sale, unless and until the customer has registered an objection. Customers are to be given the opportunity to object "free of charge and in an easy manner" both at the time the contact details are collected and with each advertising message.

All in all, is an extremely welcome development, and should serve as an example and inspiration for legislators in other territories. We are absolutely delighted to see Parliament joining the Commission and the Council in taking a stand to protect European consumers and network users. It only remains to extend similar protection to corporate citizens. This will probably have to be within the framework of other legislation than that pertaining to the processing of "personal data".

~~~
The European Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email is an all-volunteer, ad-hoc grouping of Internet users and professionals dedicated to bringing about an end to an unethical practice by technical and legislative means. http://www.euro.cauce.org/en/

Mobile phones might have something to do with this

[PenguinRadio]

One reason the EU might be more advanced is because of the widespread use of mobile phones and the belief (one day) that a mobile device will be your main Internet connection. With per-minute or per-bit charges, getting spammed is going to end up costing people some serious coin if spam continues to grow out of control.

I think this is a point a number of US politicians need to understand. With some of the charges proposed for 3G in the US ($2 a mb in some places) the end user could end up paying for a lot of crap e-mail.

Re:In other words...

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

It will be enough to go after the big offenders. It will result in the ability to launch class action lawsuits. And that is more than what we have in the US and Canada.

Not that I am a lawyer, i'm just saying.

Re:Requiring OptIn isn't going to change a damn th

[jarkko]

Opt-In is going to change things, ie. making non-opt-in commercial emails (adverts) illegal, making it possible to prosecute the violator. It's already illegal in .fi but I'm not sure if there are any suitable precedents.

There's also a loophole (I think) in that the Finnish law only forbids spam to personal email-accounts. I've gotten my share of Finnish [e-mail] spam.

Re:I can't see this ever working in the US

[Kombat]

The right of someone else to spend my money without my permission is exactly nil.

Two things.

1. Unless you're paying for your dialup "by-the-byte" (does anyone still operate that way anymore?), they're not spending your money. You've already spent it. Internet is flat-fee in the vast majority of areas.

2. Even your strong statement is not without precendent. See cell phones. If you're out of town, and I call you, YOU pay a long distance charge, just for answering your phone. Isn't this exactly analogous to checking your email? So yes, people can spend your money - it's not unheard of.

Might look good on paper.

[Helmholtz Coil]

I just don't know how any kind of legislation could ever stop or even noticeably slow spam. And I wonder how tightly you'd have to word something like this so you didn't go after legit mailers. I run an ultra-low volume mailing list at work and I get semi-indignant messages all the time from people saying they never signed up, when in fact they've usually forgotten they signed up in the first place (we don't do any address gathering or harvesting).

I always honour the unsubscription requests, even going as far as sending a note of apology, so I wonder how this would affect folks like me that try to be responsible. Having said all that, I'm still all for trying this out, on the off chance it actually works.

And I guess the spam opt-out should be in Esperanto to make sure we can all read it. :P

It won't help though

[bero-rh]

Germany has had a similar law before, and it didn't do anything.

I've reported spammers to the cops repeatedly, and usually got a letter 2 weeks later stating something along the lines of "yes, they violated the law, but we won't go after them for such a small offense because they're too busy with real crime (It's not like they're committing a major crime jike going 55 in a 50 zone, or crossing a traffic light 5 seconds after it turned red...)

I don't think this piece of legislation will be any different.

Legitimate businesses that may worry about their reputation never sent spam in the first place.

Another wonderful EU decision is...

[achiel]

That all countries of the EU are allowed to monitor and record data transmissions. This vote passed this morning, they're still debating over exactly what they're allowed to store (i.e. web URLS, web content itself, usenet etc)

Sounds like I'm gonna have to move back to the US, or somehow find an ISP that's gonna work around all this. What I was wondering about was exactly where they want to scan the data. At the ISPs or somewhere at the backbone?

A little more information can be found here [webwereld.nl], if you can read Dutch :)

Re:It won't help though

[troels]

Obviously germany have a problem then. But i hope other countries will take it more seriously.

I unfortunately can't find any examples, but we have had this law in denmark for quite a while now and i remember reading about some people who were stopped.

Of course we have different issues, like highly inconsistent laws. With email you need to opt-in, with regular mail you can opt-out (by placing a sticker on your mailbox) and on the phone only newspapers and one other type (forgot which) may advertise. A bit strange, but i guess it works.