B2B email prospecting
Sending commercial email to people at their work addresses. Rules differ by country: France and the UK allow it without prior consent under conditions, CAN-SPAM requires none.
What it means
In France, the CNIL says prospecting professionals by email can rest on legitimate interest if the person was informed when their address was collected, can object simply and free of charge, and the message relates to their profession (its example: software offered to an IT director). Every message must identify the sender and offer an easy way to refuse further messages. Generic company addresses such as info@ are outside these rules.
In the UK, PECR allows marketing email to corporate subscribers without consent, but sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals. In the US, CAN-SPAM makes no exception for business-to-business email.
GDPR still applies to named work addresses: a lawful basis, information at the first contact and an absolute right to object. M3AAWG's position is that permission is required for B2B mail as for B2C.
Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- CNIL: La prospection commerciale par courrier électroniquecnil.fr
- ICO: Electronic mail marketing (guide to PECR)ico.org.uk
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for businessftc.gov
- EUR-Lex: Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR)eur-lex.europa.eu
- M3AAWG Position on Selling Email Address Lists (June 2019)m3aawg.org
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