[FYI] There's No Spam Like American Spam
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8344-2004Feb3?language=pri
nter>
washingtonpost.com
There's No Spam Like American Spam
By Cynthia L. Webb
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 3, 2004; 9:58 AM
The United States and the European Union are stuck in a growing trade
war, but this one isn't about beef, bioengineering or bananas -- it's
about spam. It turns out that it's one of the United States's biggest
exports and European officials are desperate to ease the glut.
Yes, U.S. lawmakers are fed up with junk e-mail just like their
European counterparts. Congress even passed national, anti-spam
legislation last year. Yes, U.S. consumers get slapped with spam too.
But the fact that most spam originates in the United States (which
has no outright spam ban) has led the EU (which does) to cry for the
Americans to "do something about a world increasingly awash in
unwanted e-mail. Despite Europe's stronger privacy laws, about 53% of
all electronic mail in the 15-nation European Union is unsolicited
commercial bulk e-mail, or spam, according to Brightmail Inc., an
antispam technology company. Even though the EU has 12 official
languages, 80% of its spam is in English and 80% claims North America
as its point of origin," The Wall Street Journal reported today. The
request that the U.S. and other governments do more about spam is a
central theme of a spam workshop this week by the international
consortium Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in
Brussels. The European Commission hosted the meeting.
"According to some sources, unsolicited bulk mail volumes now account
for as much as one-half of all e-mail traffic on the Internet. Even
if a given country's domestic e-marketing culture discourages spam,
or legal restrictions are in place, spam can easily be sent from
elsewhere. With Internet access available in over 200 countries, spam
can originate from almost any location across the globe," OECD said
in a statement yesterday.
The release is diplomatic, saying only that governments must ramp up
anti-spam fight, but everyone knows the EU is mostly talking about
the United States here.
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