Spam is one war Europe will have to fight on its own.
To that end, America's leading anti-spam lobbying organization launched a European counterpart Wednesday. Enter the European Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (EuroCAUCE).
"It made sense for European folks to have their own voice in all the discussion about privacy and how the European countries manage the Internet," said John Mozena, co-founder and vice president of the US-based Coalition Against Unsolicited Email (CAUCE).
Mozena said that unsolicited commercial email, the torturously formal name for spam, is on the increase on the Continent, as it is in the United States.
CAUCE, which bills itself as the world's largest Internet-based advocacy organization, launched EuroCAUCE to build on the efforts of George Mills, a German activist. Mills had been leading his own anti-spam efforts and will serve as the new group's protempore chairman.
CAUCE will provide organizational and philosophical assistance to EuroCAUCE. The goal is to give Europe a single coherent voice when it comes to dealing with spam, Mozena said. And it will be a singular voice: EuroCAUCE's influence will extend across the European Union.
So now Europe has an advocate for dealing with a problem caused mainly by Americans. According to CAUCE, 95 percent of spam originates in the United States.
"We need to ensure that a global approach to [spam] is achieved as the international community draws closer through use of the Internet," Mills said in a statement.
In the United States, CAUCE has taken the position that industry self-regulation and technical methods are inadequate for stopping spam. The group supports legislation that would require marketers to obtain permission from consumers before sending them email advertisements.
CAUCE has also sought to work with, rather than against, the US direct-marketing industry.
CAUCE said that pending European Union directives would enact or amend national legislation on company-consumer contact on the Internet. But it is not clear whether the EU will regulate spam in this regard. EuroCAUCE will be working to see that it does.
Mozena expects the European direct marking industry to recognize the negative side of spam and ally itself with the goals of EuroCAUCE.
"Just as we have to work with the [Direct Marketing Association] here, they have to work with direct marketing groups there.
Things may not go so smoothly for EuroCAUCE. In addition to dealing with the European Union, the organization will have to work on a country-by-country basis in its marketing and anti-spam legislation efforts.
"It's much more difficult to get a single solution that's enforceable in all those different countries," Mozena said. "The language barrier [alone] is significant."
