The law surrounding the use of email as a marketing tool is not widely understood.

Spam and unsolicited email has become a widely regarded problem and clogs many an email box, however there are certain actions that can be taken if the sender has broken the law.

There are four classifications of email type:

1. Business to business
2. Business to individual
3. Individual to business
4. Individual to individual

At this time we shall remove point 4 from this discussion.

What is legal?

Business to business (B2B) and Individual to business emails are not drawn into legislation and it is legal to send marketing correspondence without being solicited.

What is illegal?

Business to Individual, without solicitation is illegal. Businesses are not permitted to email marketing correspondence without an individuals permission or knowledge.

Disclaimer and unsubscribe

It is the law to include a disclaimer and unsubscribe facility at the bottom of emails, especially B2B and business to individual. It is also a legal requirement to include Company Number and VAT Registration number on emails too.

In brief

Nowadays the ‘get out’ clause, or proof of sign up is included in emails that say “You have received this email as you have signed up to…”

It is not legal to send unsolicited marketing related emails to individuals from businesses unless they have specifically signed up to receive it.

It is legal to send unsolicited marketing emails to businesses from businesses provided the unsubscribe and relevant information is included in the footer.

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