Euro ISPs slam EU email law

The European Internet Service Provider Association (EuroISPA) has strongly criticised a European Parliament move to legitimise spam email, claiming it will put people off electronic commerce.

MEPs ruled last week that unsolicited emails are allowed - and that anyone not wanting to receive them should join a national 'opt-out' list. The clause is part of the EC directive on ecommerce.

But EuroISPA CEO, Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, told Silicon.com that it won't work in practice. "The opt-out system doesn't work efficiently for phone and fax, so we don't see how it can be extended to include the Internet," he said. "You can't have a national solution to an international problem."

A EuroISPA amendment, adopted by the EC Culture Committee last month, proposed an 'opt-in' system, where Web users would have to explicitly state their wish to receive unsolicited email.

But Le Toquin said last week's European Parliament vote against the amendment makes a compromise solution unlikely. "Direct marketing associations have lobbied hard for an opt-out vote. The only compromise will be if we can find an efficient way to run an opt-out system - but EuroISPA can't think of a way," he said.

Le Toquin, who heads the French ISP association, said one other option would be to ban the "harvesting" of email addresses from message boards and Usenet groups. But this would rely on intervention by the European Commission.