Strasbourg, 29/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - Adopting the second report by Marco Cappato (Lista Bonino, Italy) last week in Strasbourg on the draft directive on processing personal information and protecting privacy in electronic communications, the EP's Committee of Civil Liberties and Citizens' Rights decided to leave it to Member States to decide whether the sending of unsolicited e-mail for marketing purposes should be subject to prior consent by the recipient (the "opt-in" solution) or whether the sending of such e-mails be authorised as long as the recipient does not express opposition (the "opt-out" solution). However, the MEPs want marketing by fax, SMS or automatic calling systems to only be authorised with the express prior consent of the recipients, and they call for subscribers to have the right to demand that their names be removed from mailing lists ("opt-out"). They also want superfluous data identifying a subscriber to only be listed with the prior consent of the subscriber (see EUROPE of 8 September, p.11). The report will be voted on in the November plenary session (first reading under the codecision procedure).