An online survey of Consumers International filled in by over 20.000 internet users during the last two months of 2003, revealed amongst others the following figures:
? 96 % of the consumers do not like spam;
? 84 % of the consumers advocate a ban on spam.

In 2004 there is not yet a world-wide ban on spam. The United States, for example, enacted after more than 5 years in which over 20 different proposals passed review, the so-called Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003, better known as the Can-Spam Act 2003. This Act lays down conditions that have to be met before spam can be sent, so does not forbid spam. Rumour says that a reason after all this years finally a federal Act entered into force in January 2004, was the enactment at the same time in California of a State Law forbidding the sending of spam. The federal Can-Spam Act overrules this Californian Law. In this book US case law, state laws and federal laws on spam are discussed. The main focus, however, is on the European Union.

In the summer of 2002 the Directive 2002/58/EC on privacy in the sector electronic communications forbade the sending of spam. An existing Article that dated back to 1997 about commercial messages by automatic calling machines and faxes, was supplemented by email messages.

Central in this book is the discussion and in depth analysis of relevant European Union Directives and Dutch laws, as well as Dutch case law on spam. This book also provides an overview of the technology used for the sending of spam, as well as the technological measures to prevent spam being delivered.

The assumption that proved valid during the research is that technological measures as well as the law contribute to and are needed for the control of the sending of unsolicited email. However, this does not suffice to obtain significant results. The authors propose an amendment to the Internet protocol, and stress the importance to raise awareness on the side of the recipients of spam. Also, they argue spam should be approached from a broad, technologically neutral perspective. An alternative definition of spam that should be incorporated into legal texts (codes, case law) is provided. To protect European Union citizens from spam of US senders, the authors suggest that the EU member states should collectively subscribe to the American opt-out register the Can-Spam Act prescribes.