Dutch telecom watchdog fines spammers

In the Netherlands several indivuals and small companies were fined by the Dutch telecom and postal watchdog OPTA for sending out spam. They levied fines as high as 42,500EUR ($57,540).

OPTA said in a statement on Tuesday the fines were for spam -- a term widely used for unsolicited commercial e-mails, often hawking products to combat sexual dysfunction or promote weight loss -- sent to both mobile phones and to e-mail addresses.

The fines were the first by OPTA against spammers. The body said they were levied in line with tougher European Union standards to combat a problem that is estimated to cost European businesses upwards of 2.5 billion euros a year.

In 2002 the EU tried to stop spam by introducing a ban on unsolicited e-mails, but the law is weakly enforced and multiple countries haven't even introduced it yet.

Source: Reuters