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. "