Written by María Navarro
According to the Spanish Data Protection Agency, spam or junk mail is defined as “any type of unsolicited communication sent by electronic means”.
Thus, Spam is understood as any unsolicited message that normally has the purpose of offering, marketing or trying to arouse interest in a product, service or company. Although this can be done in different ways, the most widely used among the general public is by e-mail.
This conduct is particularly serious when it is carried out on a massive scale.
The sending of commercial messages without prior consent is prohibited by Spanish law, both by Law 34/2002 on Information Society Services (as a result of the transposition of Directive 31/2000/EC) and by Organic Law 15/1999 of December 13, 1999 on Data Protection.”
The AEPD has published the Guide for the Fight against Spam which contains a legal definition of what spam is, the different forms of spam that exist, tips for preventing and reducing spam, Spanish legislation related to spam and a proposal of possible solutions to this serious problem, among which, paradoxically, no mention is made of systems as simple as the imposition of the double opt-in for the inclusion of a user in a mailing list.
