The first e-mail problem: why the same message is routine in France and unlawful in Germany
Cold B2B e-mail is lawful in France and the UK, needs consent in the Netherlands and is banned in Germany. The rules in brief, and why the channel comes first.
Elena Marchetti · Compliance desk
16 October 2026 · 4 min read
The same message, four countries
Picture an export manager with a shortlist of distributors in France, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands. She writes one short, polite e-mail: who we are, what we make, would you be open to a conversation. She sends it to the general address on each company's website.
In France and the UK that is ordinary business. In the Netherlands it breaks the law unless the recipient consented first. In Germany it is an unfair commercial practice regardless of how polite the message is. Same words, four legal outcomes. Here are the rules, country by country, from the regulators' own guidance.
France: allowed, with conditions
The French data protection authority, CNIL, sets out the B2B rule plainly. Prior consent is required for commercial messages to consumers. For professional addresses, prospecting without prior consent is possible when the subject of the message relates to the recipient's professional function, and the recipient was told, when the address was collected, that they could object free of charge to any commercial use. Generic addresses such as info@ or contact@, which belong to the company rather than to a person, are not subject to these conditions at all.
In practice: write about something the company does, identify yourself, offer an easy opt-out, and honour it immediately. Keep to generic or role-based addresses where you can.
Germany: forbidden without prior express consent
Section 7(2) of the German Act against Unfair Competition (UWG) lists e-mail advertising "without the prior express consent of the recipient" as an unreasonable nuisance, and section 7(1) makes such a commercial practice unlawful. The rule does not distinguish between consumers and businesses. The only built-in exception, in section 7(3), covers existing customers whose address was obtained in the course of a sale, for similar goods, provided they have not objected and were clearly told they can opt out.
A first e-mail to a German distributor you have never dealt with therefore has no lawful basis. Telephone calls to businesses are treated differently — section 7(2) requires "at least presumed consent" from a business recipient, a narrower door that needs care. The reliable first contacts are a letter by post, a trade fair, an introduction through a partner or association, and a prompt reply to anyone who contacts you.
United Kingdom: allowed to corporate subscribers
The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) draw the line by type of subscriber. The ICO's guidance states that you can send unsolicited electronic mail marketing to corporate subscribers — companies, LLPs and public bodies — without consent or a soft opt-in. Two duties remain: you must not disguise or hide your identity, and you must provide a valid contact address for recipients to opt out.
Sole traders and ordinary partnerships are individual subscribers, and for them you need consent or the soft opt-in. And if you write to a named person at a company, UK data protection law applies to that personal data alongside PECR.
Netherlands: consent first, also for businesses
Article 11.7 of the Dutch Telecommunications Act permits electronic messages for unsolicited commercial communication only with the recipient's prior consent. The regulator, ACM, puts it in one sentence: you may send electronic messages to recipients who gave prior permission. Pre-ticked boxes or general terms do not count, every message must carry a quick and free unsubscribe option, and consent must be provable. ACM names one exception, existing customers, about products related to earlier purchases; Article 11.7(3) also exempts an address a company has itself published for receiving such messages.
The rule has covered legal persons, not only consumers, since 1 October 2009 — ACM's own enforcement decisions say so. The official business portal adds that ACM can fine senders of unsolicited e-mail. For a first contact with a Dutch distributor, that leaves post, trade fairs, introductions and inbound enquiries.
The principle: the lawful channel first
The mistake is not the message. It is deciding on the channel after writing the message. A European outreach plan that starts with "one template for everyone" fails at the first border.
Reverse the order. For each country, decide the lawful first contact before you write a word. Then write for that channel: a letter reads differently from an e-mail, and a trade-fair conversation differently again. The content of the message — who you are, what you make, why this distributor — barely changes. What changes is how it is allowed to arrive.
Two rules hold everywhere. Identify yourself clearly, with a real address. And make it trivially easy to say no, then record that no so it is never overridden.
What this means for a manufacturer
Treat the channel as part of the market entry plan, not a detail for later. Cresques market pages set out the lawful first contact for each country alongside the evidence of who sells your category there, so the distributor you found is also the distributor you can approach correctly.