Can I Send Them My Newsletter? Consent Checker for 8 Countries and Regions

How to use it

• Choose where the recipient is and whether it's a business address or a private individual. For the UK, choose between corporate subscribers (companies and similar) and sole traders, because the rules differ.
• Choose how you got the address. For existing customers and inquiries, you may be asked a follow-up question, such as when they bought.
• You'll see a verdict, the reason, what every email must include and what to record. Everything runs in your browser and nothing is sent.

What the verdicts mean

• OK to send: you have a basis to send, such as the person signing up. You still have to follow the rules on identification and unsubscribing.
• OK with conditions: an exception in the law lets you send, but with conditions such as a time limit or what you may send about. Check the conditions in the reason.
• Legal, but strongly discouraged: not prohibited, but likely to cause complaints and spam filtering.
• Not allowed: you need consent before sending.
• Depends: the answer changes by country or with the details, as with business addresses in the EU. Check the rules in the recipient's country.

The rules by country and region

• United States: CAN-SPAM is opt-out, so prior consent isn't required. Every email needs an ad disclosure (without affirmative consent), a physical postal address and a working opt-out. Gmail and Yahoo expect you to send only to people who signed up.
• EU: consent is the rule. The exception is the soft opt-in for your own similar products to customers whose address you got in a sale. Business addresses are treated differently by country: Germany requires consent, while France allows job-related B2B email without it.
• United Kingdom: individuals, including sole traders, need consent or the soft opt-in (sales and negotiations for a sale). Corporate subscribers don't need consent, but you must identify yourself, and the UK GDPR applies to named individuals' addresses.
• Canada: CASL requires express or implied consent. Implied consent from a purchase lasts two years, and from an inquiry six months. Business cards and published addresses only cover messages relevant to the person's job.
• Australia: the Spam Act requires express or inferred consent. Published addresses only cover messages relevant to the person's job, and address-harvesting software and harvested lists are banned. Unsubscribes must take effect within five business days.
• Japan: opt-in. Exceptions cover people who gave you their address in writing (such as a business card), people in a business relationship with you, and businesses that publish their own address without a refusal notice. Consent records must be kept.
• South Korea: explicit prior consent. The only exception is advertising the same kind of goods to addresses you collected directly through a paid transaction, within six months after it ended. Put (광고) at the start of the subject and reconfirm consent every two years.
• Taiwan: there's no anti-spam statute; the Personal Data Protection Act applies. State the marketing purpose when collecting, stay within it, and stop immediately when someone refuses.

Common misconceptions

• "B2B email never needs consent." It depends on the country. Germany and South Korea require prior consent for business addresses too, and in Canada implied consent only covers messages relevant to the person's job.
• "Anyone who bought once can be emailed forever." Canada's implied consent ends two years after the purchase, and Korea's exception six months after the transaction ended.
• "An unsubscribe link makes any email legal." Every country requires an unsubscribe, but outside the US you also need a basis for sending in the first place.
• "An email asking for consent is fine." In Japan, the government guidelines treat an email asking for consent as a marketing email itself.

Bought lists and scraped addresses

In Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea, and for private individuals in the EU and the UK, you can't email a bought list without consent (for business addresses in the EU and the UK, it depends on the country and the recipient), and Australia and South Korea also ban harvesting addresses with software. In the US it isn't illegal, but Google tells senders not to purchase email addresses, and dead addresses and spam traps on bought lists drag down delivery for your whole list.