Unsolicited Recommendation Emails

BGH I ZR 208/12

The German Federal Court heard a case in which the product vendor would ask a user on his commercial website to fill in his and a third party's email addresses in order to have an email sent by the vendor to the third party advertising the products. The Court found that the third party would receive the advertising email without its consent. Despite the fact that the user would start the process by filling in third party's email address, it was the vendor's intention to send an advertising email in his own name. Therefore such recommendation activity created an unsolicited email by the vendor and violated German competition law.