The European Commission and the Dutch EU presidency have distributed 2 new questionnaires on spam, "to assess progress in the EU on combating 'spam' following the Communication on this issue of January 2004 that identified relevant action for all interested parties." One questionnaire is addressed to industry, the second questionnaire to Member States and the competent regulatory authorities.

Based on the answers, the Commission will organise an open workshop, provisionally scheduled for 17 November 2004. By the end of 2004 the Commission will determine if additional or corrective action is needed. Answers must be provided by 20 October 2004.

Workshop information (05.10.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/useful_informati...

On 29 July 2004 the French Constitutional Council decided that the proposed new data protection act is not unconstitutional, except for one provision (article 9.3), which has been suppressed from the law. The law is an adoption of the European privacy directive of 1995 (1995/46/EC), and was accepted by the French Senate on 15 July 2004.

The proposal to examine the law was submitted on 20 July by members of the French parliamentary opposition. They objected particularly against the powers granted in the new paragraph 9.4 to collecting societies and similar representatives of intellectual property rights to create files with telecommunication traffic data of supposed copyright infringers to 'mutualise the battle against the piracy of works'.

The Constitutional Council rejects this complaint explicitly, considering that existing safeguards established by other laws are sufficient, like

The French data protection authority CNIL has declared the new U.S. mail-service 'Did they read it?' illegal. Through this service, launched in May 2004 by Rampell Software, subscribers get a report about the exact time their e-mail was opened, for how long, on what kind of operating system and if the mail was forwarded to other people. To use this service, subscribers simply forward their mail to Rampell, after which a one-pixel gif is added that allows for this kind of tracking. Rampell carefully avoids explaining the technology, and just promises that e-mails are being kept confidential.

The CNIL finds the service unacceptable under the French privacy legislation of 1978. The recipients do not have a choice to accept or refuse sending this information to the sender and aren't even informed. Because the service provides detailed information on the reading behaviour, the data are considered sensitive, and the collection illegal.

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine reports about plans from the governing Social-Democrats (SPD) to make spamming an offence in Germany. According to the SPD, merely introducing fines is not enough, and spamming should become an offence, with penalties or a prison sentence. The working group on Telecommunication and Mail of the SPD did not yet decide on the length of the desired sentences. Germany will implement the anti-spam legislation in a specific law against unfair competition that also forbids unsolicited faxing, not in the simultaneous pending revision of the Telecommunication Law.

According to SPD-representative Ulrich Kelber prison sentences are necessary to be able to stop the biggest spammers, that send out millions of unsolicited commercial mails. 2 or 3 of the biggest spammers from the

During the OECD workshop on spam, held in Brussels on 2 and 3 February, the consumer unions of Europe and the USA (united in the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue) presented the results of a survey amongst 21.102 consumers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 96 percent of the people said that either they hated spam or that it annoyed them. 82% of the respondents said that governments should only allow commercial e-mails to be sent if the recipient has agreed in advance to receive them (opt-in).

In spite of this apparent massive wish for opt-in, representatives from the US Federal Trade Commission defended the new opt-out legislation in the United States. This invoked polite criticism from Commissioner Liikanen and less politely worded responses from representatives from ISPs and consumer associations.

The European Commission has finally published a Communication on spam, just in time for the OECD conference on spam, hosted by the Commission on 2 and 3 February. The Communication focusses on actions to be taken by the EU member states in order to make the ban on spam more effective. Clearly, implementing the EU directive on privacy and electronic communications (2002/58/EC) is the first and most important step. 7 out of the 15 member states have not yet transposed the directive, Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Portugal.

In general, the Communication does not bring much clarity to the complex problem of banning spam. It only signals problems caused by the impossible compromises dictated by the Directive. For example, Member States may decide for themselves how and by whom the enforcement should be done. In some countries the Data Protection Authority is given the responsibility, in other countries the task is delegated to the National Regulation Authority or the Consumer Ombudsman and in many countries responsibility is not clear at all. The Commission 'solves' this problem by calling on all national parties to collaborate. Even when it is clear who the competent authority is, it often lacks investigation and enforcement powers to trace and prosecute 'spammers'. "The Commission will look to confirm that national transposition measures provide for real sanctions in the event of breach of the relevant requirements by market players, including where appropriate financial and criminal penalties."

On the 31st of October, the European Directive on Privacy in electronic communications (2002/58/EC) went into force. Only a minority of countries has implemented the directive in time, but any European citizen can now directly appeal to the directive in their national courts.

Most recently, the Dutch Lower House accepted the spam-ban on 4 November, voting unanimously for the new Telecommunication Law. Attempts from a social-democrat member of parliament to introduce penal sanctions for spamming and to extend the spam-ban to recipients on the workfloor failed, in spite of much anti-spam rhetoric from the governing liberal and christian-democrat parties.

With only a few days to go before the 31 October deadline for the transposition of the new Directive for Privacy and Electronic Communications, on 13 October the Commission organised a public workshop about spam. More than 200 public and private stake-holders attended, ranging from government representatives to consumer & civil rights groups and from data protection authorities to spokespersons for both internet and mobile telephony companies.