| Law Report: Silencing the mobiles? |
| Sunday, 31 August 2003 | |
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Marketing Direct September 2003 - As the new EU directive regulating privacy and electronic comunications becomes law across Europe at the end of this month, text messages marketers have been looking at how the toughened anti-spam laws will affect them. The directive calls for e-marketers to employ an 'opt-in' basis when sending marketing messages, unless there is already an existing customer relationship.Lars Becker, Chief Executive of SMS marketing company Flytxt, believes the regulation will have a largely positive impact. Rather than sounding a death knell for mobile marketing campaigns, he said it will "prohibit bad practice such as sending out blanket text messages to large databases of mobile numbers where no opt-in is acquired. Brands will be able to continue to incentivise responses and engage an audience via mobile. Brands can continue to collect data on customers, as ong as consumers have given explicit consent. Another likely effect is greater scrutiny over 'opt-in' mobile databases." But he warns of 'ambiguity' around the definition of the 'existing customer relationship'. "The unspecific nature of this definition raises as many questions as it answers." Still he believes that because the guideline is open to interpretation, self-regulation will play a valuable part in the implementation of the law. He added: "This is a good thing because in many instances self-regulation allows for more flexibility. The mobile marketing industry itself is very young and it's impossible to predict what it will look like in five years. Self-regulation reacts quickly to changes, whereas the process of changing legislation is long-winded. It is also effective because industry players have a strong incentive to preserve the mediums credibility." Marcel Avargues, executive director of the Electronic Retailling Association's European bureau, agrees that only the unethical need fear the new directive. He told DMI: "As usual, the member states interpretation of the 'opt-in' may cause variations on the impact this implementation will have on direct marketing practise by legitimate business - but the news is not too bad for the good and ethically-conscious direct marketer." However, he added: "The EU opt-in law will NOT reslove the spam problem as between 85 and 95 per cent of spam received by EU consumers or businesses are generated outside the EU, with the US being the makor spam generator." Enrigue Salem, CEO of technology expert Brightmail, welcomes the new law as it affects "the new phenomenon of mobile spam received via text messages sent to mobile telephones." He commented: "As mobile telephones are always in contact with their networks, this spam can be particularly intrusive and, while roaming on other European networks can be financially expensive for those paying to receive text messages while roaming. The EU's new rules will make life easier for legitimate marketers by putting a stop to intrusive, bulk spam text messages which damage consumer opinion of this type of marketing. © Copyright Flytxt Ltd 2006. Unauthorized use of any content constitutes a material breach. |
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