In message <[log in to unmask]>, Julian
Curmi <[log in to unmask]> writes

>A legal notice has been issued here in Malta related to the current
>Data Protection Act 2001 - it states that if an organisation would like
>to send direct marketing via email for example, it must first seek the
>consent of the person....

>My question is - is the UK DP Act have a similar condition.

For a summary of the UK law on this, see:

http://www.apig.org.uk/rolandperryevidence.pdf

[Briefly, yes the UK's general DPA *does* forbid sending marketing
material by email in many circumstances - in addition to, and many years
prior to, recent more specific new laws about this].

>I may have given the wrong impression - the legal notice sets a number of
>conditions that we are interpreting that it gives the organisation the
>right to use the email address. Of course, whether or not we have
>interpreted it correctly will be debated once a customer objects and the
>case is taken to the DPC.

The new UK law (based on the Privacy Directive) has the additional
condition that every email sent has to offer the possibility to
unsubscribe. And also offer the possibility to not-subscribe (if that's
the right word) when the original gathering of the email address took
place.

It's not clear what people are allowed to do with email addresses
gathered in the course of business relations in the dim and distant
past, when that offer to not-subscribe might not have happened.

Common sense probably says to email them once, and take VERY CAREFUL
NOTE of any complaints!

>Please forgive my ignorance on the acronyms you used - what does UCE and
>CE mean??

UCE is Unsolicited Commercial Email (CE is Commercial Email, dropping
the "U" to indicate that it's no longer technically "unsolicited").

In fact, people working in the Spam field prefer the expression UBM
(Unsolicited bulk email) because it's the *bulk* nature [sent to lots of
people] that matters. It's too easy to get diverted when talking about
*commercial* email [for example, is a message from a charity asking for
money "commercial" (yes, but it wastes lots of time debating it; when
it's 100% clear that it's *bulk*)].

>I didn't understand the 'close, but no cigar moment' either :((

I would say it means "you've almost got the point, but nevertheless
missed something vital".

        http://phrases.shu.ac.uk/meanings/95100.html

        Meaning: "Come disappointingly close to success."
        Origin:  "Early slot machines gave out cigars as prizes."

--
Roland Perry

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