Tell a friend systems in Dutch

So yes, tell-a-friend system are continuing to be in Dutch (trouble), but more recently are now being regulated in the Netherlands (Dutch) as well.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission last year approved four new rule provisions under the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM or the Act). The provisions were intended to clarify the Act’s requirements. One of those four provions stated that as a general matter, if a seller offers something of value in exchange for forwarding (tell-a-friend) a commercial message, the seller must comply with the Act’s requirements, such as honoring opt-out requests. A web page that has a “Click here to forward” feature that allows someone to forward a message or link to someone else (and that does not provide any encouragement to do so) would not be considered an inducement.

It was reported last week in the Netherlands that there are now joint regulations on tell-a-friend web site created by the Dutch Telecommunications Authority (DTA) and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DDPA)

As some of you are aware already, in most countries outside the U.S., privacy is a fundamental right and nearly if not all programs/process to share data require an OPT-IN. The basic principle is that the sending of unsolicited electronic messages for a commercial, non-commercial or charitable purpose is not allowed without the demonstrable, prior consent of the recipient. Because the recipients of tell-a-friend emails have not given their demonstrable, prior consent to receive these emails, “Tell-a-friend” systems in principle violate that right.

The question at hand that created these regulations was whether or not tell-a-friend forms are allowed under Dutch privacy laws. In the new regulations the DTA and DDPA mandated that tell-a-friend forms are ONLY allowed if;