Telemarketing without prior consent will be prohibited by law from Thursday

Telemarketing without prior consent will be prohibited from Thursday due to an amendment to the Telecommunications Act. Companies are only allowed to call customers after permission. The do not call registry is therefore no longer necessary.

Article 11.7 of the Telecommunications Act has been amended for the ban. If consumers are customers, they can be called by the company for three years, after which new permission is required. The ban should ensure that complaints about telemarketing disappear. These complaints continued despite the existence of the do not call registry.

The personal data in the register will be destroyed. The register now contained more than 9.5 million telephone numbers. The register has existed for about ten years. Telemarketing companies bore the operating costs, which amounted to approximately half a million euros per year.

There are requirements attached to permission to call people. For example, a pre-ticked box is not allowed. Companies should explicitly ask people for consent for telemarketing and it should not be part of consent for anything and everything. Anonymous calling is also no longer allowed; the caller must be clear to the customer. In addition, the consent must be easy to withdraw.