MANY businesses are not aware of the forthcoming implementation of new Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations according to the Institute of Directors.

The IoD claims that many businesses do not know about, or understand, what yesterday's legislation will mean for them.

The new rules require companies to gain consent from individuals before organisations can use electronic communications for marketing purposes.

This includes unsolicited commercial e-mailing, SMS text messaging, cookies and subscriber directories.

In short, the rules will mean that :

Companies or individuals will not be able to send unsolicited commercial e-mails or text messages to individual subscribers unless the recipient has agreed in advance to receive them.

There is an exception where businesses have previously established relationships with their customers.

Corporate subscribers are exempt from this rule, which means that much business-to-business e-marketing is not affected.

However all direct marketing e-mails, regardless of who they are sent to, will be required to include proper sender and contact details.

Companies using tracking devices, such as cookies on their websites will have to tell users they are doing so and provide an opportunity to reject them.

The European Commission believes that last year spam cost European business nearly $3bn in lost productivity.

Jonathan Cummings, director of e-Business at the IoD said: "The implementation of this directive could be confusing, especially for small businesses who don't have an in-house expert."

Stuart Penny of Dorcan-based IT firm Miracle added: "Will this effect companies in Swindon? Well, there are two sides to that question.

"It may reduce the amount of email flowing into companies giving cost savings in terms of IT processing and most importantly user time.

"On the other hand, there are a number of marketing and other companies in Swindon that use email as a direct marketing technique and their businesses could be seriously affected.

"Personally, I would be glad to see the level of spam reduced."