Live From DIMA: German Mailers Face New Regulatory Threat

German direct marketers, long burdened with some of the toughest privacy laws in Europe, may be hit with an even more restrictive measure. With the dusting off of an old Green Party proposal, mailers could be required to print the source of the name and address on every mailing piece.

The proposal, which is part of a greater effort to normalize German data laws within the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, must still go through several legislative stages before it could become a law next year, according to Holger Albers, chairman of Deutscher Direktmarketing Verband (DDV), the national trade association.

The deadline for comment by institutions and the public is this month.

If the measure is passed, Albers predicted, it would result in a one-third drop in mail volume, the loss of 4.5 billion deutsche marks by businesses, and the loss of 100,000 jobs.

The measure could also lead to the printing of potentially embarrassing personal information on envelopes – for example, if the source were a sex-related list. As now written, the law states that the source must be visible on the envelope of on a sticker outside, according to the DDV.

“It’s counterproductive,” said Professor Bernd Kracke, who is now serving a three-year term as president of the DDV. “It doesn’t protect the information. It publishes it.”

Kracke also pointed out the law, if passed, would create enormous logistical problems. Imagine, he said, “you mail one million pieces and use 200 lists and you have to connect addresses to the source.”

In addition, he argued that the new law will go even further than the EU Data Directive, which has no such requirement. Kracke said, “German law already implies that an individual has the right to ask for the sources.”

The measure, originally proposed by the Green Party, resurfaced earlier this year when a new government included it in its new data draft. Only Italy and the Netherlands have passed laws that are more restrictive than the EU Directive. However, German views on privacy, particularly those held by officials in the state of Hesse, have long been tougher than those of most other countries.