Thirteen EU Member States Reach Anti-Spam Agreement

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

09 February 2005

The European Commission revealed on Monday that anti-spam enforcement authorities in 13 EU member states have agreed to share information and pursue complaints across borders in a pan-European drive to combat unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Under the new voluntary initiative, the participating countries will cooperate in investigating complaints about cross-border spam from anywhere within the EU, so as to make it easier to identify and prosecute spammers anywhere in Europe.

According to an EC statement, the national agencies which have already agreed to use the procedure include: Austria’s Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology, Belgium’s Privacy Commission and Federal Public Service Economy – Directorate General Enforcement and Mediation, the Cyprus Office of the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection, the Czech Republic’s Data Protection Authority, the Danish Consumer Ombusdsman, the French data protection authority, the Hellenic Data Protection Authority, Ireland’s Dept. of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Italy’s Data Protection Authority, Lithuania’s State Data Protection Inspectorate, Malta’s Office of the Commissioner for Data Protection, the Netherlands’ electronic communications regulator (OPTA) and Data Protection Authority (CBP), and the Spanish Data Protection Authority.

All thirteen parties to the agreement have pledged to make their “best efforts” to address complaints forwarded to them from other parties, so as to ensure that more extensive cooperation closes any loopholes that could be exploited by spammers and data thieves.

Welcoming the agreement, Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding urged more widespread participation amongst EU member states.

“Enforcement authorities in Member States must be able to deal effectively with spam from other EU countries”, she observed, “even though at present most spam originates from outside the EU."

The Information Society Commissioner went on to add that:

"In parallel, we are working on cooperation with third countries both bilaterally and in international fora like the OECD and the International Telecommunications Union.”

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