Advertising Standards Agency Warns Two E-Mail Marketers

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

05 January 2004

The UK's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) last month issued rulings against two marketing firms over their contravention of the CAP Code.

Since March 2003, UK marketers have been required to follow a set of rules produced by the Committee of Advertising Practice, which govern the content of non-broadcast marketing communications within the UK.

Although the rules lack the force of legislation, the ASA, which administers them, can impose penalties in the event of non-compliance.

Under the terms of the CAP Code, marketers must ensure that their advertising communications are clearly identifiable as such. They must also ensure that explicit consent is obtained before commercial e-mails are sent, except where a prior business relationship exists. In such cases, however, customers must be able to remove themselves from the company's mailing list.

The first ASA ruling was against a Bristol-based firm, called "Business in a Box", which failed to clearly signal that its e-mail transmission contained advertising material, and did not obtain prior consent from those internet users to whom it sent the advertising e-mails.

The ASA announced that in the case of "Business in a Box":

"The Authority considered that the e-mail had not made clear, before opening, that it offered a business opportunity because it stated 'Hi' in the subject field. The Authority understood that the complainant was not a customer of the advertisers and the advertisers had not sought the complainant's consent before they sent the e-mail."

In the second case, which related to e-mails send by leading PC vendor, Evesham Technology, the ASA found that prior consent had not been obtained from the recipients of the advertising e-mails.

The Agency announced that:

"The promoters said they had bought the data, over the Internet, from a company that had told them they could supply databases of opt-in e-mail addresses. They said they had later found that the data was not suitable for e-mail marketing."

"The promoters said they had not used that data provider again and were reviewing their purchasing of databases. The Authority concluded that the promoters had not checked the bona fides of the database supplier and thus the integrity of the data. It told them to take greater care to ensure the integrity of the data in future."

Recommended