Is it legal for businesses to send unsolicited emails to other businesses?

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The law relating to email marketing is as follows:

From 11 December 2003, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 became law and two new rules came into force regarding email marketing.

1st Rule

• when they send marketing emails to you, the sender must not conceal their identity; and

• they must give you a valid address for opt-out requests

This rule actually applies to all marketing messages sent by electronic mail (see ‘electronic mail’ below), regardless of who the recipient is.

2nd Rule

• Senders cannot send such messages unless they have your prior consent to do so.

This strict ‘opt-in’ rule is relaxed if three exemption criteria are satisfied.

These are:

1. your email address was collected ‘in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale’;

2. the sender only sends promotional messages relating to their ‘similar products and services’; and

3. when your address was collected, you were given the opportunity to opt out (free of charge except for the cost of transmission) which you didn’t take. The opportunity to opt-out must be given with every subsequent message.

This rule only applies to unsolicited marketing messages sent by electronic mail to individual subscribers.

This being said, even though the law only covers email marketing being sent to individuals, it is not deemed good email marketing practice to send emails to businesses without first obtaining expressed permission.

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