Email Legislation Explained

European Email Legislation in 5 minutes!
There has been a lot has been talk over the last couple of years
- particularly since the August 2000 Distance Selling Directive
did not give the direct marketing industry sufficiently clear
guidelines about opt-in and opt-out status in respect of email
usage
At that point it was left to individual EU Member States to
ensure that Unsolicited Commercial Emails (UCE) are only sent
where there is no clear objection from the consumer This
ambiguity left the way clear for the dubious spamming practices
we have all witnessed over the last couple of years
Following persistent lobbying from pressure groups, MEP’s and
responsible email marketers, the EU Parliament finally moved in
mid 2002 to clarify the position in favour of gaining explicit
consent from email users Opt-in email marketing will become the
standard following the second reading of the EU Directive
2002/58/EC and its subsequent adoption later this year So in
practical terms, what does it mean when the Directive is adopted
in the UK? In a nutshell, it boils down to a couple of points: -
1 “…it is justified to require that prior explicit consent of
the recipients is obtained before such communications are
addressed to them” This could not be clearer – opt-in is the
only legitimate form of email marketing left available to the
direct marketing industry Providing a simple opt-out mechanism
will now no longer be sufficient to ensure legitimacy
2 “Within the context of an existing customer relationship, it
is reasonable to allow the use of electronic contact details for
the offering of similar products or services, but only by the
same company that has obtained the electronic contact
details…” This protects the use of email as a medium to
existing customers However there is a word of caution in the
Directive… “When electronic contact details are obtained, the
customer should be informed about their further use for direct
marketing in a clear and distinct manner, and be given the
opportunity to refuse such usage This opportunity should
continue to be offered with each subsequent direct marketing
message”
3 Implementation of the Directive by each Member State is due
by 31st October 2003, so time is running out for spammers
4 Move quickly to gain opt-in status for your email address
lists, and protect yourself when renting email lists by ensuring
that the status is only opt-in
As the implementation in the UK gets closer I will from time to
time re-visit this subject To be kept abreast of what this
legislation change means to you as a direct marketer, go to our
website and opt-in to receive our regular news updates
http://wwwukmarketingmanagementcom
This document was downloaded from the Bonar Media “knowledge
base” at: http://wwwbonarcouk/

Tags | customers, directive, distance, existing, marketers, marketing, practices, products, unsolicited