Existing EU rules have led to a confused situation where four member states have opt-in obligations, and five have enacted opt-out rules, where consumers receive spam until they specifically request to be excluded from such mailing lists. Six member states have no rules at all on this issue, the officials said.

Officials warned that if the industry did not take action within a year on the abuse of cookies to collect personal data without the knowledge of the data subject, then the commission will be forced to take action.

If no action has been taken within a year, the commission will propose amendments to restrict the collection of cookies.

These changes are part of the European Commission's proposals to replace the existing regulatory framework for telecommunications, which is composed of 23 directives, with a streamlined version comprising just eight pieces of legislation.

The proposals put forward last week would also require operators of mobile phone networks to block the use of services which pinpoint the location of mobile phones unless a customer has specifically agreed to allow this information to be collected.

Emergency services across the European Union have requested an exemption to this ban, and the commission and member states have agreed to seek a solution, the official said.

The European Commission, is found on the Web at http://europa.eu.int/comm/

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