Many e-mail marketing campaigns breach UK law

UK businesses often forget legal requirements for e-mail-based marketing campaigns, an electronic messaging conference in London has heard.

"Failure to comply with the Companies Act could lead to punitive action by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)," said James Bunting, director of strategy and research at the Communications Corporation.

The Act requires any marketing e-mail to contain certain details about the company involved.

These include the company's name, physical address, e-mail address, registration number, registration place, trade union membership and VAT registration number.

Bunting said although the ICO enforces these requirements, many organisations are failing to comply.

According to Bunting, this is partly out of ignorance, but also because of the relatively low fines the ICO can impose.

But he warned that could soon change when the ICO's powers of enforcement are increased.

"Organisations should waste no time to ensure they comply with these requirements because ICO crackdowns will increase and so will fines," said Bunting.