testing the new ASA guidelines on email marketing

"You have received this e-mail because you told us you were happy to receive information from WHSmith."

Want to bet?

On the 4th March 2003 the UK's ASA, [Advertising Standards Authority], a voluntary body for advertisers produced a new revision of the [ASA code] which covers email advertising.

The new code, discussed in The Register enforces the EU recommendations made in 2002

• "Explicit consent" of consumers is required before marketing via email or text messages
• Marketers may however "market their similar products to existing customers without explicit consent" providing recipients are given the opportunity to decline to receive further messages.
• Marketing messages should be clearly identified as such.

On the 26th March I received a "[marketing message]", or spam as I see it from WH Smiths. The email was sent a third party marketing firm processrequest/bluestreak.

They messed up. The email they sent was to an address that doesn't exist. The address has never existed (all emails sent to that domain end up in a common inbox). So, they can't have permission, there is no existing relationship and the subject did not make it clear it was a "marketing message".

I view this little WH Smith's fuckup as the perfect chance to see if the new ASA rules have teeth, so I created these pages to keep a note of any responses I get from the ASA or WH Smiths. Hopefully I will have some updates soon.

• [ASA acknowledgment A03-03826] (28 March)
• [The actual spam] (26 March)
• [The email to WH Smiths] (26 March)
• [The ASA complaint] (26 March)
• [Usenet post announcing these pages]
• google groups archive of the [announcement] and its [replies]
• [DTI Consultation] on European Union's Electronic Communication Data Protection Directive. Public consultation ends on closes 19 June 2003.
• [WH Smith's reply] (15 April)

The ASA posted a reply (how up to date of them) saying they couldn't investigate as the new rules had not taken effect.

[root]