Thought Of The Week

New German Privacy Law in Effect Sept. 1, 2009

Thanks go to Stephan Merz of www.d-2m.de for supplying this update.

There will be a change from opt-out to opt-in for the receipt of postal mailings and the use of postal addresses. For this significant change the government is allowing a transition period of 3 years for data collected before September 1, 2009 and not changed since. But as from September 2012 on there will be a full need for opt-in.

The new law lists 5 exceptions for non-sensitive data for advertising purposes:

1. Addresses can still be used for advertising for own purposes by the data owner. Mailings to a company's own customers for similar offers are still allowed without opt-in.

2. B2B advertising. This covers general business addresses and business addresses with a named decision maker. Mailings must be for business purposes.

3. Advertising for charities and non-profit organizations.

4. When a mailer states the (original) data source on the mail-piece and can document the delivery chain. Not with a code, but as clear information (e.g. this address was obtained from "name and address of the mailer). The information must be stored for 2 years by the list owner and the user! This includes the permission to use lists from list brokers within the so-called lettershop method.

5. When the address owner can be clearly identified. This is the case for so-called recommendation mailings or for package inserts, catalog inserts and other similar insert options.

This is a significant change from the previous law yet not the drastic and draconian version of the new law that was expected a year ago. But it impacts the German DM industry with “legal uncertainty” now, as the new law is set up quite generally and intentionally leaves room for interpretation. We also expect some companies will be taking their files off of the list rental market.

For more information on this, international marketing logistics, regulations, market entry strategies, please contact doug@focus-worldwide.com.