Bluetooth Spamming now legal in UK

Friday, October 12, 2007

Bluetooth spamming, or Bluespamming, as it is often referred to, has just become fully legal in the UK.

The British Information Commissioners Office (ICO) has set new guidelines for electronic consumer marketing, that will regulate the flow of spam, by requiring users to "opt-in" to receive the marketing, but incredibly have removed Bluetooth from their list of regulated communications mediums.

So what this means to you and I (if we were living in the UK), is that companies have been given the green light to spam us as we walk through the city, via our bluetooth-enabled phones.

Here are both the before and after wordings of the legislation:

Before:

In other words, both email and text, picture and video marketing messages are considered to be 'electronic mail'. Marketing messages transmitted using 'Bluetooth'technology, for example, messages sent to all 'Bluetooth' enabled handsets within a given radius, are also considered to be 'electronic mail', as are WAP messages. WAP Push allows a sender to send a specially formatted SMS message to a handset which, when received, allows a recipient through a single click to access and view content stored online, through the browser on the handset. (View the entire guidance v 2.0 Dec. '06 )

After:

In other words, both email and text, picture and video marketing messages are considered to be 'electronic mail'. Marketing transmitted in WAP messages is considered to be 'electronic mail'. WAP Push allows a sender to send a specially formatted SMS message to a handset which, when received, allows a recipient through a single click to access and view content stored online, through the browser on the handset. ( View the entire guidance, Version 3.1 Oct. '07)

I do not know who's smoking what over at the ICO, but I want some!