Re: Proposed EU Directive on Electronic Commerce, Beebit tmills@localhost

[Piet Beertema <]

    	First of all there's a wild variety of user mailers,
    	lots of which don't allow users to add X- header lines.
    	Go tell it the developers of those mailers.
    Irrelevant if a law requires X-UCE headers.
Then it has to be law that applies *worldwide*.
    
    	Third, spammers hide themselves and cover their tracks.
    	No EC Directive is going to change that.
    Some will be deterred by the fact that they will be
    committing an offence. Some will not.
How many spammers are deterred by those US laws
that forbid spam?
    
    	Which means that the filtering would have to be done by
	the user, *not* by his/her ISP: it might well even become
	illegal for the ISP to do such filtering!
    False. The user can authorise the ISP to filter on
    her behalf. And I see nothing requiring the ISP to
    offer an unfiltered feed either.
Agreed. But authorisation by definition makes
filtering a legal act.

    Spam *is* a marketing tool. That does not stop it
    being spam.
True.


	Piet