Euro politicians gave the thumbs up to spam last night by passing an amendment that will force Net users to register if they don't want to receive unsolicited commercial email.

Anti-spam campaigners had hoped that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs would approve an "opt-in" method, which would mean that punters would receive commercial email only if they requested it first.

Instead, they went for spam-friendly "opt-out".

One insider described the report - which also includes a ruling on text messaging - as a "dog's breakfast".

In fact, it's so bad, there are already doubts as to whether this will make it onto the statute book intact. Ho hum. ®

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