UK telecoms businesses breaking sales spam laws

According to a new report by Pitney Bowes, only 66% of the UK’s leading telecoms companies are adhering to EU Directives on Privacy and Electronic Communications, which were passed into law in the UK at the end of last year. The main gist of the legislation demands that companies can only send unsolicited sales messages via email to non-customers if they have actively opted-in to receiving them. The law makes it clear that simply offering individuals the chance to opt-out of receiving the unsolicited correspondence does not comply with the directives. The report studied compliance amongst the leading 50 companies in five separate industries - telecoms, banking, insurance, publishing and retail - with the telecoms sector proving to be the most compliant. The average figure for compliance across all five sectors was just 52%.