NEWS: Direct Marketing – Uncoded not Decoded (Part 2)
he updated Direct Marketing Code of Practice is now in the long grass
Last week we revealed that the ICO had told the DMA that the updated Direct Marketing Code of Practice was to be “significantly delayed”, certainly well into 2021 (and it must be true because Decision Marketing then said the same !)
So, what does this mean?
As we all know, predicting the future just keeps getting more tricky, but here are my two safe bets as to what will happen in the world of customer acquisition, retention and service from a personal data privacy perspective between now and whenever the new Code emerges:
1. Data privacy compliance will remain a long way down most organisations’ list of priorities.
The sky didn’t fall in on 25th May 2018 when the GDPR / new Data Protection Act went live and for most companies, life has gone on largely as it did before. Most – but far from all – ICO enforcement actions have been against the dodgy and the woefully unprofessional. And most action and fines have been based on the (very) old Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), not the shiny new post-GDPR Data Protection Act (see our infographic ‘And then what happened…?’).
2. The murky world of third-party data will continue to be clouded in misinformation and wishful thinking
This was perhaps inevitable when ICO enforcement actions are rare and the Direct Marketing Code – which should be full of practical, ‘real life’ examples of what is and isn’t permissible – is outdated. The draft new Code that the ICO circulated for consultation earlier in the year proposed radical changes which would have massively altered the third-party data environment. But until the finalised code emerges, few players in the data market have an incentive to change their techniques and approach.
Caveat emptor!
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