An E-commerce Directive was passed on 4th May 2000 but is not yet in force in Member States, which have until January 2002 to implement its provisions in their domestic laws. Under this law, unsolicited commercial e-mail must be clearly and unequivocally identifiable as such as soon as received by the recipient, i.e. in the header of the e-mail.
The new proposal goes further, saying that companies must not send spam to an e-mail address unless the owner of that address has opted-in to receive such communications.
Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen acknowledged that opting-out of e-mailing lists is often difficult, adding that the problems of how to enforce an opt-in approach still need to be addressed.
Although the US does not have a blanket ban on e-mail spam, there is a bill in Congress which would make it a criminal act to send a solicitation to a mobile phone or other wireless device without the owner’s express permission, i.e. unless they opt-in.
Another bill in the US seeks to ban traditional spam, but its progress through the legislature has been delayed by First Amendment (freedom of speech) concerns. Instead, the US courts have looked at the harm caused by spam, such as the cost of the transmissions to ISPs, to find the senders liable under other laws.