Email legal issues

[drink75]

My customer has asked me to build a way of gathering emails into their actinic shop. They have suggested an insentive where customers give three friends email addresses which will be used for marketing purposes In return they get a free gift. I don't think this is legal due to the opt-in laws.
Does anyone know?
or can anyone suggest an alternative?

[Mike Hughes]

This where the 'tell a friend' scripts come in handy.

You're right that you can't gather email addresses from third parties and start emailing them, but you can get people to tell their friends about your service and then get them to sign up independently. The main difference is that you'll need two levels of incentives. One for the 'tell a friend' bit and another to encourage the friends to subscribe.

Mike