Despite the stringent regulations, one of the biggest challenges facing email marketers in Europe is actually getting the emails delivered to the recipient. Although ISP filtering is more of an issue for consumer marketing, it is interesting that the EU in a recent judgement has questioned whether ISPs should automatically filter emails for spam as false postives might not only be an invasion of freedom of speech but also a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (the right to free speech). Of course it’s not all good, as the Working Party also expressed the “strongest opposition” to email tracking and ‘Did they read it?’ services. More information at Osborne Clarke’s Marketing Law site (registration required).
If you’re planning to compare your products with competitors, you might also want to read about the case going on between two mobile operators, which is one of the first major cases to refer to the Comparative Advertising Directive.
