MEPs urged to ban junk e-mail shots

Date: 11/03/1999

By Peter Chapman

EUROPEAN Internet service providers are calling on MEPs to support calls for a ban on junk e-mails.

The industry's EU lobby group EuroIspa claims unsolicited sales messages annoy their customers and clog up their networks. It also says service providers get nothing in return from advertisers, who set up automated procedures to target thousands of customers.

EuroIspa wants the practice, known as 'spamming', to be banned in the forthcoming directive on electronic commerce currently under scrutiny by MEPs.

"The European Commission draft just says unsolicited e-mail should be clearly identified as such," said Joe McNamee, the group's EU affairs spokesman, arguing this would still allow firms to bombard potential customers' e-mail boxes with hundreds of messages, although companies would have to agree to mark messages in a certain way.

"We are saying that only solicited e-mails should be allowed. That is where the consumer purposefully gives his e-mail address to a company in order to receive sales information," said McNamee.

McNamee acknowledges that users can set up their e-mail systems to intercept messages from certain companies. But they need to have received a message in the first place to get details of the junk mail sender. "This means companies have a carte blanche to send at least one e-mail before you can stop it," he added.

EuroIspa claims it has already won the support of a number of key MEPs in its campaign for a ban on junk e-mails. But the organisation acknowledges that it faces a tough battle as other interest groups, such as the European direct-marketing lobby group FEDMA, are calling on Euro MPs to support a liberal regime for electronic sales pitches.

The European Parliament is attempting to complete its first reading of the draft electronic commerce directive before the June Euro-election campaign.