European UnionePrivacy Directive
Officially ePrivacy Directive, Unsolicited Communications for Direct Marketing
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What follows is LexLint's own research summary of this law, not legal advice.
In force since .
A commercial messages rule binding public and private bodies.
As of .
What it requires
- Obtain the recipient's prior consent before using an automated calling machine, a fax machine, or electronic mail (including a text message, which the Directive's own definition of electronic mail reaches) to send direct marketing to an individual.
- Where you collected a customer's electronic contact details in the course of selling them a product or service, you may market your own similar products or services to that customer without fresh consent, provided you offered a free, easy opt-out at the time of collection and offer it again, free of charge, in every message, unless the customer already refused.
- For unsolicited direct marketing by means other than an automated calling machine, fax, or electronic mail, chiefly a live telephone call, check the Member State's own transposition: each state independently chooses whether such contact needs the recipient's prior consent or only needs to honour a recipient's objection.
- Never disguise or conceal the sender's identity, send without a valid address the recipient can use to ask that the messages stop, or encourage the recipient to visit a website that itself breaches Directive 2000/31/EC Article 6's disclosure rules.
If you get it wrong
Criminal exposureNo
Private right of actionYes
Criminal exposure note
Article 15a(1) requires Member States to lay down penalties 'including criminal sanctions where appropriate' for an infringement of any provision adopted under this Directive, but the Directive itself does not make a breach a criminal offence; whether an Article 13 infringement is prosecuted as a crime is entirely a matter for each Member State's own transposing law.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Each Member State's own competent national authority and, where relevant, other national bodies designated under Article 15a(2) to (4); Article 13(6) additionally lets an affected natural or legal person, including a competing electronic communications provider, bring its own legal proceedings over an infringement.
What it reaches
Obligation class
Consent, Disclosure, Prohibition
What this law does
Drafted with AI from the cited sources under the direction of UnGovr staff. UnGovr holds editorial responsibility for this page.
Article 13 requires prior consent before using an automatic calling machine, a fax machine, or electronic mail (a category the Directive's own Article 2(h) definition frames broadly enough to reach a text message) to send direct marketing to a subscriber or user. A seller may market its own similar products to an existing customer without fresh consent if it offered a free opt-out at collection and offers one again in every message.
For unsolicited direct marketing by any other means, each Member State chooses whether to require consent or only to honour an objection. Disguising the sender's identity, omitting a valid reply address, or encouraging the recipient toward a site that itself breaches e-Commerce Directive Article 6 is prohibited outright, and an affected natural or legal person, including a competing electronic communications provider, may bring its own legal proceedings over an infringement.
When LexLint raises it
automated_outreach
Read the law
Every line above is drawn from the primary source linked here, read on the date shown. This is a research summary, not legal advice.