Spam

DEFINITION

"Spam" is the colloquial word for unsollicited commercial communication.
That is, the sending of (most often) e-mails for advertising purpose to potential clients.

IMPACT ON e-BUSINESS

If the addressee is a business and already a client of you, sending out a communication to advertise a product or service connected to your business relation is permissible. If, however, your client is a consumer = private person, the prior consent of this person is necessary (opt-in). This can be done, for example, to let them tick a box that says: I agree to being informed of further offers etc. The rules on "spam" are regulated at European level but are implemented at different levels in the Member States. Germany and Austria forbid unsollicited commercial communication also for business adressees (unless they agreed beforehand, so-called "opt-in").

The reputation of a business may be at stake if it is the target of so-called "collateral spamming":  Its e-mail address is used to send out spam, without knowing it, it may end up on a spamming "black list".  To avoid this,  it is advisable not to put an automatically recognizable e-mail address on-line. For example, add spaces before/after the @ sign, or write "at".
To prevent to receive spam, technical filters are available. But not all are ideal as they may filter away e-mails that are wrongly recognised as spam. If considering to acquire a filter software, opt for an "intelligent" one (that you can teach which e-mails are spam, which not) or that ask the sender for a once-off confirmation that it is not spam. For an indication, check "spam-filter-review".

USEFUL LINKS

WIKIPEDIA article on Spam
and the very exhaustive German version
 
Fight against unwanted commercial communications (spam):

RELATED ISSUES

 

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Comments

B2B advertising allowed in EU except in E, A, D

On February 8th, 2008 kludikovsky says:

Is it correct that only in Austria, Germany and Spain unsolicited emails from business to businesses (B2B) are prohibited?
While in all other EU-member states like UK, France, etc. it is allowed to send advertising emails to businesses (assuming an opting-out option is provided).
To be precise: in all those other countrries a company A might send an advertisement email to company B (not a current customer of company a) without the prior consent of company B. Only if company B opts-out then no further advertising might be sent.
Can this be confirmed please.

Unsolicited commercial communications B2B

On February 15th, 2008 marg-a says:

In principle this is correct. However, as EU Member States are free to adopt stronger regulations, it might be that laws change. Our contributors will check and add actual information to the Wiki article.

In Spain

On October 10th, 2007 ebj@inmark.es says:
In Spain, unsolicited emails are prohibited by the Ley de Servicios de la Sociedad de la Información y Comercio Electrónico (LSSICE) – BOE from July 12th,  2002-.
Also, the LOPD (Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos) can be applied to the database owners that have recorded emails addresses in their databases, due to the fact that an email address is considered as a personal data. However, these laws do not mention the “Spam” word.