E-MAIL MARKETING: firms will need positive consent once new regulations come in

Law firms with Web sites and using e-mail marketing are facing new regulations controlling their electronic contact with potential clients.

Most legal Web sites are failing to comply with a new provision to make sites accessible to the visually impaired, it was claimed this week, while European privacy regulations will soon impose tighter restrictions on e-mail marketing to clients.

Law firms will need positive consent to send electronic marketing to clients once the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 come into force on 11 December.

Law firms will only be able to send out marketing e-mails without express consent where they have obtained the individual's contact details during a sale of services or negotiations for a sale.

The e-mails must relate to a similar product or service and the individual must have been given a simple opportunity to refuse it.

Barrister Charles Black, founder of Internet service provider Nasstar, said: 'Any marketing e-mail which is sent out should give the recipient an opportunity to unsubscribe.

It should also clearly show the sender's e-mail address.'

Solicitors should also consider how accessible their Web sites are to the blind, following implementation of the Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act 2002 (Commencement) Order 2003 on 31 October.

Under the order, Web sites should allow visually impaired users to change script sizes and fonts.

Leading legal IT consultant Delia Venables said: 'Law firms are generally doing very well on data protection issues relating to their Web sites, but on disability issues they are not.

'If you look at most new legal Web sites, in my opinion they are not complying.

The problem is that Web designers prefer to have complete control over the look of the site, and so they use methods which are not capable of being changed by the viewer.'

Web sites should include tags on their graphics so that, when certain software for the visually impaired is used, the content of the graphic will be read out to the user.

'The use of tags on graphics has no impact on the effect of the design for the normal sighted, and they should be used much more,' said Ms Venables.

IT specialist Robert Bond, a partner at City firm Faegre Benson Hobson Audley, said: 'The copyright order is only voluntary at the moment, but it will become compulsory in the future.

I suspect we will see it crystallise into a compulsory requirement over the next two years.

'Any future financial penalties, however, will have less impact on a firm than the damage to reputation if it is named and shamed as non-compliant.'

The order gives visually impaired individuals a legal right to obtain a large-text version of a Web site's contents if it cannot be read on-screen - at the company's expense.

'This poses a risk of mass targeting of any company which has a non-compliant Web site,' said Mr Bond.

Rachel Rothwell