Euro MP fights back over spam allegations

NEWS Christine Oddy, MEP, has hit out at anti-spam campaigners who have criticised the European Parliament decision not to ban junk email. Last week Oddy voted in favour of relaxed regulation for unsolicited emails, despite accusations of being pro-spam by Liberal Democrat MEP, Graham Watson. Now that Watson has published a 'name and shame' list of MEPs who voted against him, Oddy spoke out to Silicon.com: "I supported an amendment by Madame Thors, a Finnish liberal, suggesting that we had an opt-out clause for unsolicited emails. The reason why I supported that was because I felt that an opt-in was too restrictive. I, as a consumer, actually like getting some unsolicited mail." She denied claims that MEPs were ignorant on these issues and said that by contrast they were often over-zealous in their efforts to protect consumers. Watson had proposed an opt-in amendment, which would have prevented marketers from emailing anyone without prior permission. His amendment was voted down after it gained the support of just four MEPs. Oddy said an 'opt-in' system would have been too great an administrative burden. "Apparently only 3 per cent of people use the facility to opt in for the postal service in this country. I felt that the opt-out was& less onerous and it still gave some protection to consumers," she said. But Watson replied: "Junk email is different to junk postal mail. There would be higher demand for an opt-in system for unsolicited emails, because consumers have to pay to download them." He also said that ISP's were against junk email because it clogged up their systems - but a leading UK ISP disputed this, saying it favoured the opt-out clause. The dispute between Watson and Oddy arose as part of the ecommerce directive which is currently passing through the European Parliament. The full interview with Christine Oddy will be published in Silicon.com's Politics Channel next month.