ICC policy statement on 'spam' and unsolicited commercial electronic messages

In the space of a few short years e-mail has become an essential tool to do business, get information, and keep in touch. There has been much controversy about the problem of “spam” and how it may be curtailed. As different legal rules apply to electronic communications in different jurisdictions, there is no generally accepted definition of the term ‘spam.’ Consequently, our purpose in this paper is to identify illegitimate or unacceptable electronic communications, a topic on which we believe there is general agreement.

Distinguishing between what ICC and its members all agree should be categorized as ‘spam’ and legitimate commercial electronic communications brings two clear benefits:

• It recognizes the legitimate needs and benefits of commercial electronic communications, and
• It allows governments and others to focus on the real problem of harmful, fraudulent, malicious, misleading or illegal communications.