David Hearn wrote:
the business that has already taken place between the two parties and a
specific opt-in is not required, but only if those businesses were given
an
opt-out option when their details were first collected and chose not to
opt
out.

More to the point how do you differentiate 'business' and 'individual'
E-Mail addresses? It suggests a total misunderstanding of E-Mail and
the internet if TPTB think there is an actual difference.

Well, I have a work email address and a private email address. When I leave
this company, I lose my work email address but keep the private email
address. Quite a clear differentiation between them in that respect -

Er, yes, but no possible way to differentiate by looking at the
address. How are senders of unsolicited mail supposed to find out
whether an address is a 'business' address or an 'individual' address?
Not to mention that I'm not convinced that a your work E-mail address
is necessarily a business E-Mail address, if it's something like
' then it's still an individual being
addressed, apparently. Similarly I might perfectly well decide that
my personal/individual address is going to be , is
that an individual address or a business addres?


though I agree, from Screwfix's point of view, all email addresses are
possibly business as they are customers and have a business relationship.
Also, knowing automatically which email address is private and which is
business isn't generally possible (can't assume .co.uk is just business). I
suspect there will be a new box to tick on signup forms "Is this a business
email address?".


--
Chris Green )