PECR
The UK's Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, enforced by the ICO. Regulation 22 restricts marketing email to individuals but allows it to corporate subscribers.
What it means
The ICO summarises the email rules in regulation 22: you must not send marketing emails or texts to individuals without their specific consent, with a limited exception for your own previous customers, the soft opt-in. You can send marketing email to companies, and the ICO calls it good practice to keep a do-not-email list of businesses that object.
The line falls by type of subscriber. Sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals, while companies, Scottish partnerships, limited liability partnerships and government bodies count as corporate subscribers. The ICO adds that emailing employees at personal corporate addresses may also bring in data protection law.
The ICO notes its guidance is under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act, so check the current page before relying on details.
Related terms
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes