The days when brand owners can send emails without declaring that these are commercial messages in the subject field are numbered, warns brand and legal guru Ardi Kolah.

Readers of this column will recall that back in June I warned about the provisions of the EU Privacy Directive that comes into force this month. It's pretty clear that from now on brand owners must behave themselves and not try to clog up our in boxes with spam.

And trying to bend the rules won't work either. This is exactly what Berkshire-based Phone Direct tried to do and fell foul of the Advertising Standards Authority, who has just reprimanded the company for its dodgy marketing practices.

Like many brand owners, Phone Direct is trigger-happy when it comes to email marketing and it launched a campaign to promote its international call rates.

But with a difference. Read Article >> Posted by: DTB at 9:20 AM  |  Permalink