Buy our UK List today and get an updated and GDPR compatible version of the same list in April 2018, FREE of CHARGE.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation by which the UK and the EU intend to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the UK and EU. This is likely to have some impact on Business to Business (B2B) Direct Marketing practices. The regulation comes into effect on 25 May, 2018 and will apply in the UK even if the UK leaves the EU.
So what will be the regulations for B2B emails sent to individuals at UK/EU businesses after 25 May 2018?
According to the DMA (extract from their website below) it will still be legal to email named individuals at UK/EU companies and other business organizations without their consent or an opt-in after 25 May 2018 provided the recipient is given an opt out from receiving further email.
Also information provided on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website, the Government organization that will be policing and enforcing the legislation states that “The rules on emails don’t apply to emails sent to organisations”, though you must still identify yourself and provide an address.”
So, while it seems that it will be acceptable to send email messages to most business organizations the new regulation might mean that after 25 May 2018 there might be a problem to email named individual sole trader email addresses in the UK/EU without an opt-in* although how or if these rules will actually be enforced will likely not be 100% clear until later in 2018.
Therefore from April 2018, should it become necessary to do so, we will remove or flag Individual/Personal Email Addresses at UK small businesses, (that are not classified as business organisations) from our Lists and add new business email addresses that are compatible with GDPR regulations especially at Limited Companies. But whatever the situation after 25 May 2018 all our Lists will be fully compatible with the new regulations.
All our customers that have purchased a UK Business List between 1 January and 29 April 2018 will be able to request and receive such a revised List from 30 April 2018 onwards at NO EXTRA CHARGE.
Extract from the UK Direct Marketing Association (DMA) website: (information was live as of November 2017)
“When dealing with employees of corporates, that is limited companies, LLPs, partnerships in Scotland and government departments, the rules for telephone and direct mail are the same, opt-out.
However when emailing or texting, you do not need the prior consent/opt-in from the individual. You can therefore send them a marketing email/text as long as you provide an easy way to opt-out of future communications from you.
For any B2B marketing communications, regardless of channel, the content must be about products and/or services that are relevant to the recipients’ job role.
This situation will not change under GDPR. These rules for email and text messages come under the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) and this will not be affected by the implementation of GDPR.” Read the full article at UK Direct Marketing Association
* “Opt-In” Lists …and finally some information about so called “opt in” Lists;
In the opinion of many responsible professionals in the Email Marketing industry the only truly valid optin list is a list created from contacts that have opted-in to receive details of YOUR products or services. So called “Opt in” lists sold by some other list suppliers are usually supplied on the basis that those listed have ‘opted in’ to received all types of commercial messages via email. This basically means, any message, on any subject, from any sender! But while some of those listed might have agreed to receive email messages concerning a very specific subject, from a very specific supplier, most never agreed to receive email messages from any other third party. Therefore, if you are offered so called “opt in” lists from other list suppliers you will need to follow up to see exactly what is meant by an “optin” and what proof of an “opt in” they provide as it unlikely this will be sufficient to comply with GDPR if you email to named individuals at small businesses after 25 May 2018.
Note: The European Beauty Salons list will not be available after May 25 2018
If you need information on sending commercial email messages please see the ‘Sending Email Successfully’ page via the above Navigation Bar