Parties to the agreement have undertaken to make their "best efforts" to address complaints forwarded to them from other parties, so as to ensure that more extensive cooperation closes any loopholes that could be exploited by spammers and data thieves.
The voluntary agreement has been drawn up by the newly created contact network of spam enforcement authorities – a body that facilitates the sharing of anti-spam information and best practice between the appropriate agencies in Member States and the wider European Economic Area.
Those agencies currently signed up to the agreement include Austria's Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology; the French data protection authority and Ireland's Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.
The EU's Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding urged authorities in all EU Member States to join the agreement.
"Enforcement authorities in Member States must be able to deal effectively with spam from other EU countries", she said, "even though at present most spam originates from outside the EU. In parallel, we are working on cooperation with third countries both bilaterally and in international fora like the OECD and the International Telecommunication Union."
