August 5, 2002—The European Union has passed a directive for the protection of personal data and privacy in electronic communications with new rules for “spam” and “cookies.” Under the new directive, spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail, text messages, faxes, or telephone calls from automated calling systems, are illegal unless the consumer has indicated willingness to receive them. Also, mobile phone users must have the capability of temporarily blocking the processing of their location data at any time.
Consumers must also be informed about the purposes of cookies (files to be stored on a consumer’s computer by a Web site for future use) and be offered the right to refuse such processing.
Based on a report from Out-law.com.
