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Email Marketing And UK Law |
There are two pieces of legislation that cover email marketing
and electronic communications in general. The first is the
Data Protection Act 1998. The second is the Privacy and
Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. As
well as being legally binding, the provisions they contain
both make sense. It makes no business sense to alienate
current, or potential customers by spamming them and by giving
them no option to opt-out of receiving your sales messages.
Main Provisions Of The Directive
If you have had no contact with a customer before, you need
their permission before you contact them by email. The phrase
commonly used is that they must opt-in.
If you have done business with the customer before, you can
email them if you are contacting them about similar products
and services to the ones that they have bought from you
before.
You must make it clear who your email is from.
You must provide a valid reply address.
You must include a working unsubscribe link in the email
Further Guidance
More information on the legislation is available from the
following sources:
General information on The Data Protection Act
Short guidance on the Privacy and Electronic Communications
Regs
Specific information on email communications
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