Effects of the EU 'Ban on Spam' Directive?

At the beginning of this month, the European Union’s ‘ban on spam’ directive (PDF format) took effect:

‘Cookies’ and other invisible tracking devices that can collect information on Internet users may be utilised only if the user is given clear information about the purpose of any such invisible activity and is offered the right to refuse it.

Location data generated by mobile phones can only be further used or passed on by network operators with explicit user consent. The only exceptions are the transmission of location data to emergency services, and transmission of data to law enforcement authorities, subject to strict conditions.

E-mail marketing is only allowed with prior consent (‘opt-in’). Disguised identities and invalid return addresses are also outlawed. The new regime also covers SMS messages and other electronic messages sent to any mobile and fixed terminal.

Enforcement of the Directive is left to the individual EU countries. Several are running behind schedule with the new regime’s implementation. Only Austria, Denmark, Italy and Sweden had brought their own national laws in line with the new directive prior to its 1 November deadline.

If you’re a publisher in an EU country, please tell us if the directive if effecting you. We’ll keep your identity confidential and will share with you any research findings.

What We Do

Since 1996, the media business consulting firm of Digital Deliverance has provided publishers and broadcasters on four continents with strategic reviews and advice about how to profitably adapt to the epochal changes that computer-mediated technologies have wrought on the media environment and their industries.

Over the years, the firm’s clients have include The New York Times, News Corporation, The Irish Times of Dublin, Dagbladet of Oslo, The Mail & Guardian of Johannesburg, Advance Publications, Critical Mention, MediaNews Group, New Century Network, the Media Development Investment Fund, the National Cancer Institutes, and scores of other media firms that need to adapt to computer-mediated technologies and the rise of Individuated Media.

The managing partner of Digital Deliverance is Vin Crosbie, Adjunct Professor of postgraduate New Media Management at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, in upstate New York. From 2007 through 2020, he wrote and was the sole instructor of the school’s New Media Business course, a course required for students in the New Media Management master’s degree curriculuum, an elective course for Ph.D. students, and a permission-only course for selected undergraduates and graduate students.

Digital Deliverance is incorporated as a limited liability company in the U.S. state of Connecticut, where it is based in the city of Norwich, Connecticut.

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