Economic and Social Committee

The composition and functions of the Economic and Social Committee would be familiar to anyone acquainted with those of the Supervisory Board (Aufsichtsrat) in large German companies. Simply put, representatives of various interest groups (employers, employees, consumer groups, and others) meet in a common forum to work out the best compromise solution to a given issue, and to advise the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council.

Full text of the Committee's Opinion can be found in the Commission Information Society Directorate's collection of documents relating to the legal framework for the development of electronic commerce.

Concerning email:-

4.6. Article 7: Unsolicited commercial communication

4.6.1. For recipients of commercial communications, the point is often not only the unsolicited nature of electronic advertising, but also, thanks to technology, its sheer volume, and the resulting costs in terms of telephone charges and storage capacity. Volume also presents difficulties for providers.

4.6.2. The draft directive stipulates that unsolicited electronic communication by e-mail must be identified as such. This is designed to give both recipient and provider the opportunity to use software to filter out unwanted e-mail advertising (‘opt-out’). That said, it is the recipient who has to take the initiative here.

4.6.3. These arrangements are not perfect, however. Providers cannot filter mail unless requested to do so by the user — except in the case of obvious spammers — since otherwise those users desiring the information would not receive it. Secondly, users finding their mailbox full after being absent for any length of time are denied access to their desired (e.g. private) mail.

4.6.4. For this reason, the Committee would propose considering another possibility, namely user opt-in, where users exercise self-determination by expressing an explicit interest in receiving information. This opt-in option is available to Member States (see Annex II), but should be provided for across the board.