Legal and public affairs

The DPA is the only organisation that represents the interests of bona-fide UK directory and data publishers to government and the wider business community and is constantly involved with ensuring UK and European government are aware of members' interests. The DPA has been involved in a wide range of issues including:

Competition Commission investigating classified directories

In December 2006 the Competition Commission published its final report on the market for Classified Directory Advertising Services. The report recognised the increasingly competitive nature of the market in which a number of DPA members operate.

Yell, the largest publisher in the UK local classified directory market, has been asked to comply with a number of restrictions, including the existing price rise cap at RPI-6% until March 2008 but reducing to RPI thereafter. The Competition Commission also relaxed restrictions on second-tier directories and themed guides within specific guidelines and recommended that a further review by the Office of Fair Trading in three years.

Consumer Credit Advertising Regulations

The Consumer Credit (Advertisements) Regulations 2004 came into force and with the existing Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 together created the regulatory environment for the advertising of financial services in the UK. These changes have created major difficulties for directory publishers who wish to publish financial services advertisements.

The DPA has been liaising with the OFT and FSA, and we have secured an agreement to allow single "health warnings" to consumers. We are monitoring the situation to see if there are further difficulties for the DPA members concerned.

Creative Economy Programme

The DPA has been consulted on The Creative Economy Programme. Launched in November 2005, this is a further step in Governments desire to make the UK the world’s creative hub. A DCMS commissioned report underlined how vibrant – and how economically important – UK creative industries are.

The DPA noted in a meeting with ministers how little mention was made of database and business information publishing and the significant contribution DPA members make to export revenues, employment and technical innovation. The DPA also took the opportunity to emphasise the need for UK government to press ahead with reducing obstacles to accessing public sector information.

Data Protection Act

Data protection continues to attract attention. From January 2007, company directors whose organisations collect data without issuing a valid data protection notice could face up to ten years in jail. The Fraud Act will prosecute people who dishonestly fail to disclose information when they are legally bound to do so and therefore make a gain for themselves or causes loss to another.

Electronic Commerce Directive implications

The DPA, with other Digital Content Forum (DCF) members submitted a response to the DTI consultation on the implications of extending the "mere conduit" exceptions for liability to providers of hyperlinks, location tool and content aggregation services. Under the current legislation there is a limit of liability, where these service providers act as mere conduits, caches or hosts of information.

Wide ranging discussions have dealt with many of the complexities of a still evolving issue. There are legitimate concerns of some aggregators that they may be held liable for content which is defamatory or in contempt of court and over which they have no editorial control as they take an automated feed from the content owner. Other data publishers argue that such liability can be dealt with contractually between the aggregator and the content owner.

As data publishers continue to develop their service offerings to include third party data these are potential concerns which should be recognised. At the same time the DPA is concerned that copyright in members' products should not be undermined by any extension of exceptions.

A submission to the DTI was made in September 2005. The consultation document can be viewed here.

European Commission evaluation of Database Directive

After much discussion in 2006, the European Commission (EC) decided to leave the Database Directive as it currently stands.

Controversial plans to undermine database compilation by scrapping the directive became a real threat. The DPA collected evidence supporting the association’s view that the investment in databases is an integral, and ongoing,part of its members’ business.

Further lobbying from European Association of Directory Publishers (EADP) and submissions from individual respondents made this outcome possible.

Gowers' Review of Intellectual Property

The Gowers' Review into the UK Intellectual Property Framework was published at the beginning of December 2006. The DPA welcomed the report, which supports Intellectual Property. The review has considered ways in which the system can better serve the interests of all concerned – although much focus has been on the consumer market to the detriment of the business information and media sector.

The DPA is aware that some of the recommendations which address consumer issues (e.g. proposals to allow format shifting for music being copied from CDs to I-pods) may have unforseen consequences if applied to database publishing.

Legal Deposit Advisory Panel

The Legal Deposit Advisory Panel is advising and making recommendations to the Secretary of State at the DCMS on the extension of legal deposit to non-print materials including online and web databases. The DPA, which is a member of the panel, supports the initiative to preserve the UK’s digitally published material but is working to ensure that database publishers are not commercially or economically disadvantaged by access to deposited materials.

Public Sector Information Regulations

Improved access to and re-use of public sector and government information is seen by the UK government as offering a significant spur to developing the UK information sector. Despite this and the recent implementation of the EU directive a number of difficulties exist for publishers trying to identify and secure data for re-use.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) recognised this in its market study into the commercial use of public information (CUPI), and found that more competition in public sector information could benefit the UK economy.

The recent government changes offer an opportunity for the DPA to highlight the need for a more liberal government attitude to access to important government and trading fund controlled data.

Unsolicited Goods and Services

On the 6 April 2005 the Regulatory Reform Order (RRO) came into effect.

The main changes are that:
- the authorisation requirements in section 3 of the unsolicited goods and services act 1971 will no longer apply to repeat entries and renewals, provided they meet certain criteria
- an order for a directory entry made by way of an order form or the advertiser's own stationary may now be sent electronically as well as in paper form
- the requirements formerly in the Unsolicited Goods and Services [Invoices etc] Regulations 1975 will be simplified and updated so that electronic documents may satisfy them
- the information required from the publisher for the written Note of Agreement method and electronic communication method for placing a directory entry will be the same

Unfair Commercial Practices consultation open

The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), which obliges businesses not to mislead consumers or subject them to aggressive commercial practices, needs implementing into English law by December 2007.

As all Member States are obliged to implement the Directive in its entirety into national law, the aim of the consultation, which closed in March 2006, was not to seek views on the principles contained in the Directive itself, but rather the method in which the Government will transpose the measures into UK law.

Many publishers stated that if this were to go ahead, criminal sanctions would weaken the effective advertising self-regulatory system currently undertaken by the Advertising Standards Authority and the Committee of Advertising Practice.

Key Documents
Unfair Commercial Practices Directive


DTI consultation documents on the transposition of the Directive into UK law:
Consultation document
Executive Summary


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