By: Illia Belichenko Starting a newsletter under German rules
An email address a customer leaves during checkout or sign up does not by itself grant permission to send them advertising, that needs its own consent that was not already bundled into the order.
The double opt in flow works like this. The person enters the address into the sign up form, receives an email with a single confirmation link and only counts as subscribed after clicking that link, not right after typing the address into the form.
The confirmation email should ask only for confirmation of the sign up, with no promotional offers inside it, since the email itself is not yet consented advertising.
Proof of consent consists of the sign up timestamp, the page address and the IP address the click came from, and that record needs keeping for as long as the address stays on the list.
A narrow exemption exists for an address collected during a purchase, provided the advertising covers only similar products and the person could object for free at the time of purchase, that exemption does not extend to the full catalogue or other products.
Unsubscribing has to appear in every email, work without a login and take effect immediately, an unsubscribe that only kicks in after a few days is already a violation on its own.
An old address list collected without clear advertising consent cannot simply be uploaded into a new tool and mailed, those addresses need their own fresh confirmation before the first email goes out.
A sending service based outside the European Union needs extra transfer safeguards and a data processing agreement with that service itself, just like any other provider that technically processes the website's data.
This text explains the legal requirements and does not replace legal advice. Assessing a specific mailing depends on where the addresses came from and the details of the case.
A newsletter that launches without clean proof of sign up usually turns into a problem before the first real send. Illia BizTech sets up the sign up form with double opt in as its own task from the start, not an add on to a finished website after launch.
Illia BizTech builds and maintains websites for small and medium businesses in Russian, German and English, from the first version through ongoing maintenance and SEO work. A team carries the project from idea to launch without long internal approval chains, so the client speaks directly with the people writing the code and managing the content, not through a chain of account managers. That fits businesses moving to Germany or expanding into the German-speaking market who want to explain their task once, not repeat it on every call.