Keith Mitchell, chairman of the London Internet Exchange (LINX), has called the European Parliament’s decision not to ban unsolcited email or Spam, ignorant and misguided. Mitchell said last week’s decision not to ban spam (CI No 3,565) ignored existing work that [ISPs] have done in this area, and showed a lack of understanding among politicians of the issues and technology involved, and the wishes of the vast majority of email users.
The problem of spam is far worse than traditional junk mailing or telephone canvassing, says Mitchell. In the telecoms industry, telephone lists are handled by operators which act under strict regulations and there are significant limits to physical junk mailing practices. But emails can be collected easily with web searches and the list can then be sold on as a commodity by unregulated organizations. Mitchell told ComputerWire that the opt-out scheme favored by members of the European parliament is in theory already in practice, and is simply ineffective. unregulated mailing list operators, says Mitchell, consider opt-out requests as evidence that the address is in use and consequently raise its commodity value. Spaming is cheap and easy, says Mitchell, because of the technology involved and so needs more decisive action.
Mitchell favors the kind of opt-in system, proposed by the European Green Party and rejected in the European parliament last week, which would require that consumers be made aware of what uses their email addresses would be put and to agree to receive commercial marketing mail. Many ISPs already operate just such a system says Mitchell, and mailing organizations which do not adhere to codes of conduct are black listed by those ISPs. Mitchell says ISPs will continue to take measures within existing law, to protect their customers and [their] own resources from misuse by unsolicited bulk marketeers, adding that what ISP wanted was help in doing this.
