Oct 8, 2009, 17:21 GMT
Brussels - Brussels on Thursday urged national governments to step up their fight against spammers amid data showing that the majority of Europeans keep on being pestered by unsolicited emails.
Although spam has been illegal in the European Union since 2002, a recent Eurobarometer poll showed that 65 per cent of EU citizens still receive spam on a regular basis.
At national level, the figure ranges from a high of 83 per cent in Portugal to a low of 31 per cent in Slovakia.
'We need to step up our fight against spammers and make sure that the EU adopts legislation that provides for strong civil and criminal sanctions against spammers,' said Viviane Reding, the EU's commissioner for information society and media.
'If we can end the spam plague within Europe we will set the example for our neighbouring countries and other parts of the world which are as responsible for spam we receive in Europe,' Reding said.
According to industry figures, one in six spam emails are sent from the United States. And the commission is currently negotiating an agreement with the US administration of Barack Obama to improve international cooperation on the enforcement of consumer protection laws.
A study commissioned by EU officials in Brussels found that member states treat spam differently, with the Netherlands imposing the highest fine on offenders (1 million euros (1.48 million dollars)) and spammers in Romania, Ireland and Latvia getting away with only modest fines of several hundred euros.
The EU executive is currently working on a new provision that would require penalties for breaking national laws on online privacy to be 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive.'
The commission also wants to oblige EU governments to allocate the necessary resources to national enforcement authorities.
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