Translation of "Préposé au courrier et aux services " (French → English) :

In order to be considered substitutable, the services do not necessarily have to cover all the features of the universal service, such as daily delivery or complete national coverage, provided that they cover at least one of the features of the services provided under the universal service; express and courier services are not considered as services that are substitutable for the universal service .

EU CONFIDENTIAL information shall be forwarded by diplomatic bag, military mail services and secure telecommunications.

- target actions at a) companies involved in or making use of direct marketing, b) consumers who subscribe to e-mail services, including SMS services and c) providers of e-mail services, including providers of mobile services.

(18) Information society services span a wide range of economic activities which take place on-line; these activities can, in particular, consist of selling goods on-line; activities such as the delivery of goods as such or the provision of services off-line are not covered; information society services are not solely restricted to services giving rise to on-line contracting but also, in so far as they represent an economic activity, extend to services which are not remunerated by those who receive them, such as those offering on-line information or commercial communications, or those providing tools allowing for search, access and re ...[+++]trieval of data; information society services also include services consisting of the transmission of information via a communication network, in providing access to a communication network or in hosting information provided by a recipient of the service; television broadcasting within the meaning of Directive EEC/89/552 and radio broadcasting are not information society services because they are not provided at individual request; by contrast, services which are transmitted point to point, such as video-on-demand or the provision of commercial communications by electronic mail are information society services; the use of electronic mail or equivalent individual communications for instance by natural persons acting outside their trade, business or profession including their use for the conclusion of contracts between such persons is not an information society service; the contractual relationship between an employee and his employer is not an information society service; activities which by their very nature cannot be carried out at a distance and by electronic means, such as the statutory auditing of company accounts or medical advice requiring the physical examination of a patient are not information society services.

(30) The sending of unsolicited commercial communications by electronic mail may be undesirable for consumers and information society service providers and may disrupt the smooth functioning of interactive networks; the question of consent by recipient of certain forms of unsolicited commercial communications is not addressed by this Directive, but has already been addressed, in particular, by Directive 97/7/EC and by Directive 97/66/EC; in Member States which authorise unsolicited commercial communications by electronic mail, the setting up of appropriate industry filtering initiatives should be ...[+++]encouraged and facilitated; in addition it is necessary that in any event unsolicited commercial communities are clearly identifiable as such in order to improve transparency and to facilitate the functioning of such industry initiatives; unsolicited commercial communications by electronic mail should not result in additional communication costs for the recipient.

The postal sector is likely to evolve quite rapidly over the coming years because the development of electronic mail can replace traditional mail to a certain extent, automation of mail processing allows productivity to increase and the need to develop new or improved services (e-commerce will require efficient logistics networks to deliver goods and services throughout the Union).