Brussels, 06/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 6 April, the European Commission closed the infringement procedure against Italy which had failed to protect consumers from annoying unsolicited telemarketing phone calls. Italy has now complied with its obligations under the EU directive on privacy and electronic communications by implementing a new opt-out system which ensures that Italian citizens whose numbers are listed in public telephone directories do not receive unsolicited phone calls for marketing purposes. The Commission opened an infringement case against Italy in January 2010, as old databases established for directory services were available to external companies for marketing purposes without subscribers whose details were contained in the database having been informed. The Commission also raised concerns that subscribers would have difficulties to opt-out if they did not want their data to be used. (I.L./transl.rt)