Legal Considerations
You need to be aware that there are a number of regulations that relate specifically to e-marketing. You need to keep abreast of developments in this area to ensure that you are complying with the various rules.
Email and SMS marketing - the new rules
In December 2003, new rules came into force covering marketing e-mails and SMS messages to individuals.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations introduced an opt-in consent procedure for commercial emails - which means you can only target people who have agreed to be contacted. This is a change from previous rules, which required only that customers be given the opportunity to opt out.
To save having to contact all your existing customers to get consent, the rules apply only to new customers. You can continue marketing to your current customers provided they can opt-out of future messages and the messages cover similar products and services.
The other main point is that you must clearly mark your emails with your contact details and include a valid return email address.
Using cookies
Cookies are small pieces of software that websites store on users' computers. They have a very wide variety of uses, but an important one is to track the movements of visitors to websites, counting clicks, establishing how people arrived at the site and how they navigate around it. In short, cookies can be a very useful marketing tool.
Under the new Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, businesses have to inform their customers that they use cookies, and provide an opt-out facility for those who do not wish to accept them. In practice this will mean providing the user with a "privacy" or "cookies" statement that explains how they are being used and how they can be switched off.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has set up a specialist team to develop a practical approach to the rules on cookies.