European Email Legislation in 5 minutes!
By John McCabe
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://www.ukmarketingmanagement.com
This document was downloaded from the Bonar Media “knowledge
base” at: http://www.bonar.co.uk/
About the author:
John McCabe is the co-founder of UK Marketing Management
(UKMM), a specialist direct marketing agency. He has
15 years experience of developing direct marketing campaigns
in a variety of industries. During the last four years
he has concentrated on email marketing, both as a corporate
end user and as an agency. During this time he has helped
develop the media with list owners, broadcasters and
clients - pushing up service levels and quality of data.
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