The BBC has a story out saying the European Community is demanding the industry have "a united front on spam."

That is simply not possible right now.

It's not possible because, no matter how uniform EU laws might be, and no matter how many EU nations may have passed those laws, the laws of the EU are completely different from those of the U.S., which is where most spam comes from.

The EU has adopted an "opt-in" requirement for e-mail marketing. The U.S., in contrast, has legalized "spam-that-is-not-spam."

Even if the U.S. changed its law today, it would still take a lot of time for the change to become meaningful, since other countries may choose to legalize "spam-that-is-not-spam" and prevent the enforcement of the opt-in standard.

All of which means that U.S. marketers, who were desperate to keep spam-that-is-not-spam legal, now face a future in which they can't do any real e-mail marketing at all, because spam has cluttered inboxes to such an extent that users -- the market -- is simply rejecting e-mail entirely.

Thanks a lot guys.