Brussels, 02/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - According to a study on unsolicited commercial communications over the Internet, that the Commission published on Thursday, internet subscribers are said to unwittingly paying an estimated 10 billion euro a year in connection costs just to receive "junk" e-mails (or "spam"). According to a Commission press release, this study, "which provides detailed information on the junk mail phenomenon in both the United States and the European Union, forms part of the Commission's ongoing efforts to ensure that the development of the Internet and e-mail commerce does not undermine Europe's rules on Internet privacy and data protection". The Commission will take account of it when proposing adaptations to European legislation on data protection. The Commissioner responsible for the internal market, Frits Bolkestein, declared on Friday that the "exponential growth of junk e-mail in recent years is a fact of life." He also deplored the fact that "consumer information gleaned from individual web transactions/consultations can be sold for large sums of money, and yet many subscribers are unaware of the scale and implications of these developments".
The study comp[rises two chapters, one industrial, the other legal. The industrial chapter, broadly based on an examination of the American market, encourages the development of "interactive marketing" (e-mail marketing), which is less expensive and more effective that traditional marketing methods and aims to render clients faithful through an approach resting on permission. It attributes the reduction in the spam phenomenon in the American market to the effectiveness of the prevention system (MAPS, Mail Abuse Prevention System), to the fines set by the regulatory authorities and the counter-culture to e-mail marketing.
In Europe, data protection is currently enshrined in two directives in force for five years now. One defines the general rules (95/46/EC) and the other sets out specific provisions relating to date protection and the protection of private life in the telecommunications sector (97/66/EC). A debate on the interpretation of this system of protection has divided those in favour of the "opt-in" method (request to receive such information) and those in favour of the "opt-out" (refusal to receive unsolicited information) for four years now. Some Member States (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Germany) exclusively apply the opt-in.
In July 2000 the Commission proposed to update Directive 97/66/EC by favouring the opt-in approach, arguing that it would prove to be more effective, more viable and enhance consumer confidence. In the legal aspect of the study, the authors move in this direction by favouring a solution, of American inspiration, the "opt-in e-mail marketing." For them, it is necessary to harmonise European legislation, both to avoid potential barriers to the free movement of data within the market and to fight against "spamming", a phenomenon they still consider to be little used in Europe. They feel that this presents a danger for the survival of the Internet, to the extent that present technology enables for a single cyber-marketing company to send 100 million commercial mails per day.
EUROPE recalls that the Commission is presently referring Ireland, Luxembourg, France and Germany before the Court of Justice for not having notified the measures taken to transpose Directive 95/46/EC into national law. The report on unsolicited commercial communications is accessible on the website http: //europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market.