spam law

What do the new measures to cut down spam mean to your company and its email communications with customers? Find out more.

The government’s enforcement of anti-spam legislation is intended to give internet and mobile phone users greater protection.

As of Thursday, December 11, 2003 it will be an offence to send email or SMS text messages unless:

• there is an existing customer relationship with the recipient
• or the recipient has given their permission to receive material

A fine of up to £5,000 can be imposed for each breach of the new legislation.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) says: “The receiver is required to agree in advance, except in the context of an existing customer relationship, where companies may continue to email or SMS to market their own similar products on an 'opt-out' basis.”

The DTI’s definition of an existing customer relationship is where email addresses have been obtained in the course of “a sale or negotiations for a sale of a product or service”. And there is a restriction to marketing “similar products and services” only.

This means that if Customer A bought a budgie cage from your company, it is perfectly acceptable to send email on that subject. What you can’t do is email marketing about dog beds to Customer A.

A possible grey area could be what constitutes a personal email address. A Hotmail account would, for instance, be regarded as personal, but not sales@exampleco.co.uk. Difficulties arise over a named individual’s work email address, e.g. joe_bloggs@exampleco.co.uk Is this a personal address or business email?

The best practice advice from the DTI is to adopt the follow guidelines in order to stay legal and keep on good terms with the inhabitants of your email address book:

• all email addresses (work or home) should be considered to be personal data

• if email addresses are to be used for marketing purposes, this should be stated at the point of collection (i.e. write ‘Advertising ’ in the Subject box)

• once informed, the user should be able to refuse permission for their email to be used for marketing purposes (i.e. opt-out)

• if email is to be sent to those with whom a customer relationship exists, the content should be in reference to similar products and services, and there should still be an opt-out opportunity

• if the email addresses are to be shared with third parties, this should be stated at the point of collection

• email addresses should not be harvested and used for marketing purposes without the recipients’ knowledge

• and recipients should be able to refuse permission for further marketing messages to be sent to them at any time.