Hey there,

Two EU privacy shifts worth flagging this week. Spain has officially backed soft opt-in, opening a cleaner path to post-purchase email subscribers. Slovakia went the other way and tightened the conditions on direct marketing, so anyone shipping there needs to revisit their consent setup. Both stories are below.

Also this week: our Omnisend integration goes live. Michael is running a 30-minute webinar on Wednesday on how Dataships moves the needle on opt-ins, LTV and revenue for brands on Omnisend. Sign up below.

Have a great week!

💙 Matt

🇪🇸 Spain's AEPD Just Backed Soft Opt-In Over GDPR For Email Marketing

The Spanish data protection authority (AEPD) just issued a decision aligning with the CJEU's recent Inteligo ruling. For direct marketing to existing customers, Spain has formally accepted that the ePrivacy Directive's soft opt-in regime takes precedence over GDPR's stricter consent requirements.

Spain is the first EU member state to expressly adopt this position.

For brands running soft opt-in across Europe, the question of whether it actually overrides GDPR for marketing just got a clearer answer. The AEPD held that Article 21 of LSSI (Spain's transposition of soft opt-in) is a "special law whose application prevails over GDPR" for marketing to existing customers on similar products or services.

The wider read: EU regulators are coalescing around soft opt-in as the correct legal basis for direct marketing to existing customers. Brands hedging with explicit-consent-only setups across Europe are leaving deliverable inbox volume and repeat revenue on the table.

🚨 Dataships x Omnisend Webinar

Dataships co-founder Michael Storan is running a live session tomorrow at 11:30 AM ET / 16:30 GMT on the new Dataships × Omnisend integration we're launching.

He'll be running through:

→ How it works under the hood (5-minute setup)
→ The audience sync flow and how consent data lands in Omnisend
→ What Shopify Plus brands on Omnisend are leaving on the table at checkout
→ Live Q&A on your own setup
Plus live Q&A on attendees' own setups, which is usually the bit people show up for.

Worth signing up even if you can't make it live, the recording goes out to everyone registered.

🇸🇰 Slovakia Just Put A One-Year Clock On Soft Opt-In Marketing

Slovakia amended its Electronic Communications and Postal Services Act this week. Contact details obtained through a sale can now only be used for direct marketing for 12 months after that sale ends.

The mechanic it just introduced isn't a small change. This is the first EU jurisdiction to formally treat soft opt-in as decay-based rather than a one-time capture event. Other DPAs are watching how it lands.

If you sell into Slovakia and a customer hasn't transacted in over 12 months, soft opt-in stops being your legal basis for marketing them. You either run a consent renewal or you suppress.

The wider signal: lists are no longer static archives. Contact freshness needs to track relationship freshness, and brands running their consent layer as a one-time capture event will need to adapt as this pattern spreads into larger markets.