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Spam Your Rights Online

UK And EU May Make Unsolicited Email Illegal 382

Posted by timothy from the as-well-they-ought dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to this BBC article the UK and the EU are planning to making unsolicited email simply illegal. This doesn't do anything for prevention practically, but it does legally pave the way for measures that do. Lord Sainsbury of Turville admits it will do nothing to stop spam from outside the EU."
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UK And EU May Make Unsolicited Email Illegal More

UK And EU May Make Unsolicited Email Illegal

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  • UK and the EU? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @02:50AM (#5899235)
    Last time I checked, UK was a part of the EU, and has been for decades. :P

    • Re:UK and the EU? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:01AM (#5899290) Homepage
      Yes, but the average Brit, in his heart of hearts, still doesn't really believe that.

    • Re:UK and the EU? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @06:51AM (#5899894) Homepage Journal
      Our wierd European legislation system is the reason for this slightly odd phrasing.

      The EU does not actually have the power to make laws, it merely issues directives that force it's member countries to make laws with a specific effect within a certain timescale if they want to stay EU members.

      In this case the UK (and all the rest of the EU member states) will be obliged to pass anti-spam laws. The actual wording of the laws will not necessarily be the same in each country ( we don't all use the same language for a start), nor will the penalties and definitions, but the broad thrust of the directive will be implemented.

  • wasn't it about opt out? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Submarine ( 12319 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @02:52AM (#5899246) Homepage
    I thought the EU was thinking of making opt out mandatory? (That is, you could be subscribed to some spam list without your consent, but you could ask to be removed from the list.)

    In any case, show us the directive...

    • Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by sly ( 31768 )
      I don't know about the EU, but opt out won't work because you could be added to new lists (legally) faster than you can remove yourself from old ones.
    • nope they changed that to opt-in wich should be law by october. may not help much but it could help against small-time local spammers. We have enough of those.
      • they changed that to opt-in

        Merely an extension of existing UK law. The Data Protection Act prevents the exchange of information between companies without your consent. When they get a hold of your e-mail address, they are in violation unless they themselves mined it.

        Also, when you sign up to any contract, by law they must have a "don't send me junk" box that you can tick. Sounds as though the new measures are pretty much the same, but for the digital realm.

        The only difference is that it is currently

    • Re:wasn't it about opt out? (Score:5, Informative)

      by GammaTau ( 636807 ) <jni@iki.fi> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:32AM (#5899416) Homepage Journal
      In any case, show us the directive...

      The full English version of the directive is here [eu.int] as a PDF file.

      Since it's a lengthy piece of legal text that isn't all that fun to follow, the most important part is here:

      Article 13

      Unsolicited communications

      1. The use of automated calling systems without human intervention (automatic calling machines), facsimile machines (fax) or electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing may only be allowed in respect of subscribers who have given their prior consent.

  • Uk and EU? (Score:2, Informative)

    by smooc ( 59753 )
    <disclaimer>Ok I did not read the article yet</disclaimer> ,but I always thought the UK was part of the EU (not the EMU though)?
    • Since 1973 I think.
    • Maybe you are not aware of the distinction between Old and presumably New Europe that is all rage in Washington.

      The poster is probably equally well informed.

      • Yeah, I've been wondering about that.
        Since Rumsfeld keeps yapping on about how the centre of Europe has moved further to the eastern parts of Europe, how come the U.S. hasn't done the same and declared Denver as the nation's capital, seeing as how Denver is pretty much smack in the middle of the U.S. landmass?
    • And is a set union operation. Thus you can say "my car and it's engine are old", even though the engine is in fact part of the car. Since the article is from the BBC, it makes sense that they might want to explicitly mention the UK.

  • Forgot the "Commercial"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Agent Orange ( 34692 ) <christhom AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @02:55AM (#5899256)
    Sort of nit-picking, I know, but shouldn't that be unsolicited "commercial" email. I get heaps of unsolicited email. From friends, colleagues etc...

    I would hate not to get any email that wasn't a direct response to something I sent. What would I do for 2hours every morning when I got in? :-)
    • Rather, unsolicited "bulk" email. I don't care if the mail is selling Viagra, pitching a political candidate or asking me to please help save the Wales - it's not addressed specifically to me, and it's not wanted.

    • I hope it's unsolicited BULK email..

      I'm not concerned about one-off commercial emails. If someone's actually read a posting or my webpage and knows I'm looking for something they sell, then I guess it's not strictly 'unsolicited' anyway.

      OTOH I would be mighty annoyed if I started getting bulk mail from (non-profit/non-commercial) political or religious groups.

      • There's a potential loophoole with BULK.

        I get a few commerical spams daily, each apparently coming from some nonexistant person on our network or on Yahoo and having been addresses to me alone. It is likely that the sender is forging email headers, making 'bulk' solicitations seem 'personal'.

        How does this proposal address such a situation? (Nope, didn't read the article yet!)
      • "I would be mighty annoyed if I started getting bulk mail from (non-profit/non-commercial) political or religious groups"

        True, but in the US, the difficulty is that religious and political speech has the highest protection, thus are impossible to regulate in any way. Love it or hate it, that's at the heart of the American political system.

        Commercial speech, however, can be regulated; witness the ban on tobacco and certain types of alcohol ads on TV.

    • Even worse, it would be illegal for you to send an initial email requesting their response.

      Egg, meet chicken. Chicken, this is egg.

  • we will send an email to all potential spammers to inform them of the new laws...

  • Uncolicited Email (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jvervloet ( 532924 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @02:56AM (#5899261) Homepage Journal

    I wonder where they'll draw the line of `unsolicited email'. Which mails fall under this category ? For mails like `RRApply for a online mortgage loan 247', it is clear, but if I send a mail to somebody, and this person doesn't like me, can he accuse me for sending unsolicited email ?

    • Re:Uncolicited Email (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kavau ( 554682 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @09:24AM (#5900812) Homepage
      I wonder where they'll draw the line of `unsolicited email'. Which mails fall under this category ? For mails like `RRApply for a online mortgage loan 247', it is clear, but if I send a mail to somebody, and this person doesn't like me, can he accuse me for sending unsolicited email ?

      1. The use of automated calling systems without human intervention (automatic calling machines), facsimile machines (fax) or electronic mail for the purposes of direct marketing may only be allowed in respect of subscribers who have given their prior consent.
      If you send a personal email to someone, this certainly doesn't qualify as "automated calling systems". Mass email would, I guess.

  • Most spam comes from US and Asia (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mark2003 ( 632879 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:00AM (#5899284)
    Or at least is targeted at the US - most of the offers I get every day are for cheap dental care, cheap medical care, loans in USD and fake diplomas from US Universities (and of course porn).

    This would indicate that most is from the US, so obviously this new law means F**k all, although I guess we could go for extradition or arrest them if they come to Europe on holiday ;)

  • It will work. (Score:5, Informative)

    by qute ( 78334 ) <qute.slashdot@COWqute.dk minus herbivore> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:04AM (#5899298) Homepage
    In Denmark it is already illegal for companies(but not people) to send out SPAM.

    If the EU makes SPAM illegal, then spammers cannot SPAM from the EU.
    US is also trying to stop SPAM.

    Lets say these countries are the only ones to do something. It will still work!

    Currently I put everything from china into my SPAM-folder and by golly, I'll just blacklist every country that doesn't have anti-SPAM laws.

    Problem (almost) solved :-)

    • The really nice side-effect: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:25AM (#5899385) Homepage
      Currently I put everything from china into my SPAM-folder and by golly, I'll just blacklist every country that doesn't have anti-SPAM laws.

      The interesting thing is this: let's say that the U.S. and EU do both ban spam, and all the spam is coming from outside the U.S. and EU. A *lot* of people will react the same way you do.

      That is to say, we'll suddenly see a lot more careless e-mail blocks being placed on large swaths of entire countries, some by individuals, and most likely often by ISPs. We already see a LOT of huge e-mail blocks being done by ISPs, especially AOL, without much concern for collateral damage; it isn't inconcievable that a number of random ISPs might just look at their statistics and shortsightedly go, hmm, 90% of our spam comes from (for example) Indonesia, who is going to be talking to people in Indonesia anyway, i'll just block the whole country (or maybe just most of their IP space).

      Once this starts happening, internet users and businesses in (for example) Indonesia are suddenly going to start discovering that they are having trouble communicating with the U.S., and this is because of spammers in their country. I find it likely that if this happens, their response will be to complain to their government to do something about the spammers that are making the americans block them... until one day, spam is illegal in indonesia as well, and shortsighted ISPs in indonesia are going, hey, all my spam's coming from Myanmar, why don't i just block e-mail from there..

      So if the US or EU ever adopted real antispam laws, it could start a big domino effect that would cause a lot of other countries to adopt antispam laws as well.

      • Re:The really nice side-effect: (Score:5, Informative)

        by zcat_NZ ( 267672 ) <zcat@wired.net.nz> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:41AM (#5899439) Homepage
        That is to say, we'll suddenly see a lot more careless e-mail blocks being placed on large swaths of entire countries, some by individuals, and most likely often by ISPs.

        Which reminds me; could you all kindly remind your ISP's that APNIC's address space is not JUST China, Korea and the Phillipines. It includes some friendly, non-spammy countries too (NZ and Australia).
      • So if the US or EU ever adopted real antispam laws, it could start a big domino effect that would cause a lot of other countries to adopt antispam laws as well.

        It could happen, but you cannot be sure. I hope you will be proven right.
      • ...so now spam is illegal in Indonesia too. But the users will still be cut off from EU and US for a long time. Years later you will still sometimes find out that you can't send an e-mail to someone, because his small ISP can't be bothered to monitor Internet law in all countries. It's a big, big trap, it'll take years to recover from such "internet death".

        If this goes through, the rest of the world will have to follow or there will be trouble. Still, they won't and there will be. Oh, well...
      • The interesting thing is this: let's say that the U.S. and EU do both ban spam, and all the spam is coming from outside the U.S. and EU.

        In which case possibly the US and EU could heal their diplomatic differences by declaring a "war on spam".

    • Re:It will work. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by realdpk ( 116490 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:26AM (#5899389) Homepage Journal
      Huh, last I saw the US was trying to make sure that spamming is legal, at least for most organizations (politicians, non-profits which can do surveys "Do you prefer the crisp, cool taste of Coca Cola classic to the sewage taste of Pepsi?", etc), with laws written by the DMA.

      I could be wrong though. :)
    • This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess. Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [Source] [www.jp.dk] ============= Headline: Expensive to spam Text: In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristriction. 100
      • This article is from Jyllands Posten, the largest newspaper in Denmark. I'm quite surprised it hasn't been mentioned on Slashdot, but here's my chance to karma-whore I guess.

        Freely translated by me, I'm sure some Dane will correct me. [ Source [www.jp.dk]]

        =============
        Headline: Expensive to spam

        Text:
        In the first case about violating the marketing law regarding spam via email or telefax, the company Fonn Danmark A/S have been handed a fine of 15000 Dkr [= 2020]. More cases are waiting in other juristrictions.

    • It already works in Poland. We have an anti-spam law for about 2 months, only opt-in is allowed. Since this law, I haven't received a single spam message from Poland!

      However, I'm still getting about one per day from Far East and about ten - from US :/

  • "from the as-well-they-ought dept." !! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dr. Photo ( 640363 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:05AM (#5899307) Journal
    Though the article implies that this would be directed towards commercial email, it doesn't seem to explicitly say so.

    "Unsolicited email" could include personal and noncommercial messages.

    Perhaps "Unsolicited Commercial Email", or even "Unsolicited Mass Email" should be addressed.

    It'd be nice if the text of the proposed legislation were linked to somewhere. (This is your invitation, Gentle Reader, to post any such links of which you may have knowledge... :-P )
    • It does. It says 'for the purposes of direct marketing' and 'with no human intervention'.
      This addresses both Commercial and Mass mailing. It covers not only email, but also fax and telephone..
      • The linked BBC article says:

        Under the directive unsolicited e-mails may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and "with their prior consent" or where there is an existing customer relationship.

        (1) Unsolicited e-mails (2) may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and (3) "with their prior consent" or (4) where there is an existing customer relationship.

        So, by their phrasing of it, sending an email to a long-lost schoolmate, for example, would be (1) an unsolicited
        • I think they have broken down that sentence inappropriately - the summary should be:

          Unsolicited e-mails that are sent for direct marketing purposes may only be sent to individuals with their prior consent or when there is an existing customer relationship.

          That means that 'for direct marketing purposes' is not a condition. It is a descriptive sentence, it describes what will be sent. Your interpretation is correct, but the BBC writer messed up when he summarised the directive.

  • Heheheh (Score:5, Funny)

    by captainclever ( 568610 ) <rj&audioscrobbler,com> on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:06AM (#5899311) Homepage
    1. Signup for lots of pr0n sites
    2. Receive lots of spam
    3. ???
    4. Profit!

    How long before someone gets their ass sued off as a result of this.

    Gah i hate spam :)

  • But (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Loosewire ( 628916 ) *
    What exactly is unsolicited email?
    Yes i know spam but what is their definition, i dont want to get sued for sending someone an email they didnt ask for

    • Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MoThugz ( 560556 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:28AM (#5899399) Homepage
      IANAL, in fact I didn't even read the article (and proud of it too), but spam is unsolicited commercial email. To keep it simple if your email is...

      1) Sent in bulk to people who did not specifically ask to be contacted via email.
      2) Is selling some form of product or service. ... then it is spam. If you're just mass mailing rants and raves about non-commercial stuff, it's just chain e-mails (to me at least, not that I love them any more than spam).

  • ultimately... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jpnews ( 647965 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:07AM (#5899313)
    ...it can't (and won't) be stopped. It probably WILL be taxed, however. When these governments realize how much they could be raking in if there was a postage-like tax on spam messages, they won't be able to resist creating a broad email tax. Think, for instance, how much money postal services must be making off junk mail.
    • As usual, to find your answers just follow the money.

    • When these governments realize how much they could be raking in if there was a postage-like tax on spam messages, they won't be able to resist creating a broad email tax. Think, for instance, how much money postal services must be making off junk mail.

      Why do you think that the problem has not been addressed for so long?

      If you ask me the government has been waiting for the problem to reach critical mass. If two years ago someone had suggested that people pay to send email they would have been laughed
  • At least if the directive really does work the way the article says it does. Consider the two following situations.
    1. Bill writes an angry diatribe on slashdot.org. In Bill's user profile is a link to his website, which contains his e-mail address. Joe comes across slashdot and, offended by the diatribe, writes an angry flame in disagreement and e-mails it to Bill. Bill gets upset by this and sues Joe for sending an "unsolicited e-mail".
    2. Bill writes an angry diatrabe on slashdot.org. In Bill's user profile is

    • Re:This is poorly thought out. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @04:14AM (#5899520)
      > Joe comes across slashdot and, offended by the diatribe, writes an angry flame in disagreement and e-mails it to Bill

      (40) Safeguards should be provided for subscribers against intrusion of their privacy by unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes in particular by means of automated calling machines, telefaxes, and e-mails, including SMS messages. These forms of unsolicited commercial communications may on the one hand be relatively easy and cheap to send and on the other may impose a burden and/or cost on the recipient. Moreover, in some cases their volume may also cause difficulties for electronic communications networks and terminal equipment. For such forms of unsolicited communications for direct marketing, it is justified to require that prior explicit consent of the recipients is obtained before such communications are addressed to them.

      > excuse for the idea that Bill has entered into a business relationship with it, and then sends Bill spam forever without a clear sign of how to remove himself from their lists?

      (41) Within the context of an existing customer relationship, it is reasonable to allow the use of electronic contact details for the offering of similar products or services, but only by the same company that has obtained the electronic contact details in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC. When electronic contact details are obtained, the customer should be informed about their further use for direct marketing in a clear and distinct manner, and be given the opportunity to refuse such usage. This opportunity should continue to be offered with each subsequent direct marketing message

    • It talks about direct mailing. Anyway, a EU Directive is not law; it is just a set of guidelines for member states to make their own laws. For reading the directives, some browsing from http://europa.eu.int will be enough :-)

    • You are describing good examples of why some people see anti-spam laws as potentially dangerous - and at least unworkable.

      The internet and email were originally designed to let anyone send a message to anyone - no ifs, ands or buts.

      Now commercial interests have caused the legal machinery to cut away at this design.

      They sell the laws as helping *you*, but it is really to reduce the burden of spam on large corporate and government networks.

      In other words, corporations - through their appointed representat
      • In other words, corporations - through their appointed representatives (parliament) - are saying "yeah, we find the internet you guys designed to be very useful - except for this freedom to email thing, and this freedom to share files thing, and ... and ... and ..."

        The two are not at all comparable. Free speech is not absolute. Arguing for freedom to spam is like arguing for the freedom to accost people in the street and shout disgusting pornographic advertising slogans in their faces. With a megaphone.

    • You are right; they have to specify the type of mail. And "commercial" alone won't do it. Think of your unsolicited phone calls. In addition to salesmen, you have surveys and other junk.

      Due to postings on usenet for a couple of years in the mid-90's, my school email address is registered in a million databases as open to receiving religious mail. Every week I get somebody else deciding to add me to their daily devotional list. That's not commercial, but it's just as unwelcome.

  • EU has already made UCE illegal (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaip ( 92449 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:15AM (#5899343) Homepage

    EU has already made unsolicited commercial email (UCE) illegal, see article 13 of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications (2002/58/EC [eu.int]), after intense lobbying e.g. by EuroCAUCE [cauce.org].

    The directive must be implemented by the member states by 31 October 2003.

    (I just wrote statement [effi.org] [in Finnish] to the Finnish ministry of transports and communications [mintc.fi] on behalf of Electronic Frontier Finland [effi.org] of our proposed local implementation of the directive (which at the current form would allow ask-permission-spam (i.e. you would be allowed to send spam to ask permission to send more spam. :( )))

    • you would be allowed to send spam to ask permission to send more spam.

      Isn't this necessary to support double-opt in?

      • Isn't this necessary to support double-opt in?

        It is as long as you are subscribing for commercial mailings/newsletter/so on, but mass mailing huge amounts of "reply to subscribe" mails should IMHO still be illegal.
      • Isn't this necessary to support double-opt in?

        No, it's overbroad. For "double-opt-in", as you call it (also known as "confirmation-based subscription") the user, or someone pretending to be them, has already consented to the subscription. You are just confirming that it was really them.

        This rule would allow "one-time" spamming with adverts "disguised" as subscription requests. (I'm sure spammers would find creative ways to get around even the "one-time" restriction - but that's not the point - even one

  • SO Simple! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SamMichaels ( 213605 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:16AM (#5899348)
    How come countries don't have nuclear bomb testing anymore? Because it affects the entire world.

    Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs? The internet is worldwide and it affects us all.

    We don't need an ICANN. We don't need a single police force. We just need the countries to come together and recognize that EVERYONE is involved and EVERYONE should do their part.

    • Re:SO Simple! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Oddly_Drac ( 625066 )
      "How come countries don't have nuclear bomb testing anymore? Because it affects the entire world."

      Actually more likely that they can't afford it, or political pressure has been brought by the haves against the have nots. You might recall some sabre-rattling between Pakistan and India a couple of years ago before the US started to play mediator.

      "Why don't all the countries come together to eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?"

      Ah, you mean by refusing to talk to each other for several years
    • > Why don't all the countries come together to
      > eliminate spam like they did with nuclear bombs?

      In other news, the first plutonium pits since 13 years ago were just produced inside the USA.

      (A plutonium pit is the core of a nuclear warhead.)

  • Physical spam in the UK (Score:5, Informative)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:17AM (#5899350) Homepage
    There are two useful services for stopping unwanted mail and calls in the UK. I'm registered with both, and they do work.
    • The Mailing Preferences Service [mpsonline.org.uk] for direct mail. Remember to sign up and block the names of you, your family, your dog, the previous owner's dog etc.
    • The Telephone Preferences Service [tpsonline.org.uk] is the phone equivalent. Never really got much direct calling anyway, but I've had none since signing up for this.

    Both services take about three months to fully kick in following registration.

    There's a loophole in the mailing one though, and a comment in another thread some time ago mentioned a way round it. Junk mail may still be delivered to 'The Occupier' by the Royal Mail. Someone a while ago mentioned there was a service to stop this too - haven't been able to find that one. Anybody know?

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • Under the directive unsolicited e-mails may only be sent to individuals for direct marketing purposes and "with their prior consent" or where there is an existing customer relationship.

    As I read this - and INAL - a company you have already bought something from can spam the living daylights out of you if it's "direct marketing" (however they define that). I'll guess I'll keep my spam-trap (email-adress used solely for giving away on the web while regristring, subscribing, shopping and so on) for a whil

  • Radio 4 last night (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ella the Cat ( 133841 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:23AM (#5899374) Homepage Journal

    I heard some of the debate in Parliament on Radio 4 last night (I think, I was sleepy). I recall hearing an MP (member of parliament) suggesting in all seriousness that since faxes are supposed to have a reply address, requiring this for email would help matters. His heart is in the right place, no complaints there, but it shows how worryigly easy it is to pass inappropriate technology legislation if the legislators aren't clued up to understand the subtleties.

    • Try not to be so pedantically literal. I'm sure he meant a reply address as in "an address that one can actually reply to, which truthfully identifies the sender", etc. etc.

      If you can't reply to a "reply address" it's not really a proper reply address, is it?

      Do you think fax laws allow you to put "Mickey Mouse, Timbuctoo" as your return address?

  • send in the marines! (Score:5, Funny)

    by s4m7 ( 519684 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:25AM (#5899387) Homepage
    <bushspeek>

    These spammers clearly represent a threat to freedom, diversity and sanctity worldwide. We must be swift and decisive in the coming days. A crippling onslaught of spamming faces us and we must stand proud in its defiance.

    We must act with haste to bring these spammers to justice. Must we wait for the "smoking gun" of a mushroom cloud? Victory can only be ours if we crush these spammers with our military might.
    and syria.

    </bushspeek>

  • it *is* illegal in some parts of EU (Score:5, Interesting)

    by morten poulsen ( 220629 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @03:34AM (#5899419) Homepage
    In Denmark we have had a law against unsolicited commercial email for some time. The law was originally against fax spam, but has been extended to cover email too.
  • I guess this can kill off email in Europe. This is absurd. Any email can be considered unsolicited.
    • This is absurd. Any email can be considered unsolicited.

      Fortunately, the BBC article writer is a moron. This is not what the law actually says. It only applies to direct marketing emails that are without a prior business relationship, as many other slashdot posters have pointed out.

  • Thank you, anti-spam campaigners (Score:4, Informative)

    by pchown ( 90777 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @04:00AM (#5899481)
    This directive was first published in the middle of last year, I don't know why it's suddenly become newsworthy. The anti-spam campaigners have done well, though. As far as EU companies go, email will be opt-in for the whole European Economic Area (which includes the European Union). I'd like to thank the people who have put in so much effort to bring about this result.

    Another interesting legal change comes with the Electronic Commerce Directive, which removes ISP's liability when they are acting as a "mere conduit" for illegal information. This is already in force, and marks the end of Godrey v Demon [cyber-rights.org].
  • I signed up with the various *PS preference serviecs but unfortunately still get spam.

    The worst one is phone calls. I moved into a rented place a few years back and took over the phone there. Then, when I moved to a house I was actually buying I thought I'd pay the small fee to transfer the number, because everyone knew it by now.

    Unfortunately the last person to use the number before me (A Mr. Brown) seems to have signed up to everything in the universe, given them his phone number and not ticked the "Oh

  • Authentication, Non-repudiation, Solic. Criteria (Score:3, Interesting)

    by superyooser ( 100462 ) on Wednesday May 07, 2003 @04:14AM (#5899519) Homepage Journal
    Without some standard way to prove that an e-mail was solicited, this legislation might as well be called the Trial Lawyers Employment Protection Act. The courts will be backlogged indefinitely.

    Maybe a new SMTP header can be required to contain the recipient's secret "Solicitor's ID". But then, some money-grubbing person could just delete or alter it and claim to the court that it was never there. I'm not an encryption expert, but there's got to be some way with hashes and PGP or something to prove this.

    In the process, you'll first have to prove that the e-mail was actually sent from the sender it claims to be sent from so that you're accusing the right party and the sender can't deny it. Then you'll have to prove that the e-mail's data wasn't somehow altered in transit, whether maliciously or by transmission error, which could botch your methods of authentication.

    Another issue is:
    By what criteria is an e-mail solicited: sender, subject matter, or both? I might have solicited a receipt from Amazon when I made a purchase, but not Amazon's marketing for related products. I might like to solicit e-mail from anybody about low-priced flat panel monitors, but not any other kind of e-mail from the senders with this material.

    And what about combined content? Some solicited, some not. What about domains collectively owned by a number of parties, one of which is on my white list? This thing is going to be a legal quagmire. This legislation is going to have to be thousands of pages long to explain how all of this is going to work.

    One more thing... If they require some kind of encryption or special e-mail header, they'll have to make another law requiring all companies and developers who make software with e-mail functionality to change their programs to bundle or imbed whatever special code the government dictates.

  • poland (Score:2, Interesting)

    by pmf ( 255410 )
    in Poland it's already illegal.
  • There exist EU-directives for privacy protection (art 13 may 2002). Italy (other EU-countries should have similar laws enacted) has the law 675/96 (decreto di legge), for which the authority explicitly states, that the mere presence of an e-mail address on some webpage does NOT constitute permission to use it for sending unsolicited e-mails, whatever the purpose (even if not comercial!).

    Spamming is illegal in Italy, and fined with up to 5000 Euro per incident!

    The problem is USA: I cannot repeat it often

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