Dominican Republic Anti Spam Law 310-14 regulating the Submission of Non Solicited Commercial Emails (Spam) in the Dominican Republic was enacted on August 8, 2014.

The purpose of Law 310-14 is to regulate the excessive and abusive practices of individuals and legal persons who send messages via email without the explicit consent of the receiving party, so that the submission of non-authorized communications for promotional, commercial and advertising purposes is reduced and persons affected can pursue legal actions in case of a violation of the legal provisions and prohibitions under the Law.

At the outset, Article 4 of the Law establishes that any commercial communication that is submitted via Email shall indicate conspicuously in the subject matter the advertising term “Publicidad” and that when such advertising is directed to adults the same shall include the term “Publicidad para Adultos”.

Commercial communications sent through Email shall include: complete name domicile and E-mail address of the communications initiator, coincidence among Email owner , internet based mechanisms and the initiator of the communications, an active and valid response email address (or a telephone number in the case of mobile phone communications) shall exist for when the receiving party notifies of its wish not to receive commercial communications and the implemented response mechanism shall be operative and respond to the receiving party within the two days after the latter has notified of its will not to receive commercial communications.

In addition, Article 7 of Law 310-14 provides that the direct or indirect submission of unsolicited commercial communications whether by electronic mail or by the use of mobile phones without the authorization or consent of the receiving party is prohibited.

In this regard, the Law 310-14 establishes the following privacy rights of persons: 1) Not receive unsolicited commercial communications; 2) To explicitly reject the receipt of unsolicited commercial communications by utilizing a valid and active response mechanism. 3) To revoke at any moment the consent granted for the reception of the commercial communications.

The illegal commercial communications which may give ground to the legal actions and sanctions under law include: where a communication is sent without having been requested or authorized by the receiving party, contains false and misleading information on its subject, does not allow the receiving party, the service provider or authorities to identify or respond to the issuer of the communication, and when a communication is sent five days after the receiving party has notified it does not want to continue receiving communications.

There are exceptions under which no legal action or sanctions will be applied including, when the receiving party has or has had a commercial relationship with the person who issues the communications and has not expressed its will not to continue receiving such communications and when the receiving party voluntarily requests the submission of communications.

The legal violations and sanctions regime indicates that any person who delivers or causes the delivery of commercial communications in violation of Law 310-14 shall be liable for the losses and damages that such submission causes and the receiving party of the unsolicited commercial communications shall have the legal right to initiate a judicial action for losses and damages before the judicial court with territorial jurisdiction.

Finally, the Law establishes certain crimes punished with sanctions from 6 months to 5 years in prison and fines from one to 200 hundred minimum salaries to those who send illegal commercial communications or perform illegal activities such as accessing an information technology system without authorization and intentionally initiating the transmission of commercial communication from or through such system or resending or retransmitting commercial communications in order to frame the receiving parties, falsifying the subject of the message containing commercial communications, intentionally initiating its transmission, fraudulently registering or collecting, by using false information, the identity of the registrant of an email account and email addresses of public access sites, registration, offering the sale of email address databases without the consent of its owners for the purpose of generating unsolicited commercial communications.

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 Disclaimer: This publication is not intended to provide legal advice or suggest a guaranteed outcome as individual situations will differ and the law may have changed since publication. For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.

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