Principles and standards of our members’ conduct

I. Purpose and goals
II. Contents of the Code
III. Implementation of the Code
IV. Validity of changes

I. Purpose and goals [ top of the page ]

This Code of Ethics lays out the principles and standards of conduct for the members of the Association of Direct Marketing (ADiMa).

Through its Code of Ethics, ADiMa contributes to the client and consumer protection, protects interests of its members against dubious businesses and approaches causing damage to the whole association, protects the good name of direct marketing and the whole association, promotes direct marketing as a method and supports efforts to create a healthy business and legal environment, favourable for profitable direct marketing activities.

All of the ADiMa members are fully obliged to abide by all of the provisions set herein. This Code is binding for the members also in cases when they provide services to non-members, unless other obligations set by a higher-level rule of law are to be observed. This shall not withdraw responsibility from the clients.

This Code of Ethics aims to:

1. protect the clients and consumers touched by the services provided by ADiMa members
2. create positive awareness and economic significance of the direct marketing industry and its practical business use
3. protect professional interests of the members and systematic presentation of ADiMa to all of the institutions, political organizations and businesses
4. provide proper and correct flow of information to the ADiMa members, enabling them to operate legally in the commercially positive environment
5. help to bring down the barriers blocking the development of direct marketing
6. enhance the confidence among direct marketing clients through setting efficient self-regulation and control
7. support investments in new technologies including information technologies, and create relevant standards in direct marketing
8. appropriately coordinate activities of ADiMa members
9. educate marketing professionals in the market in order to enhance a better professional approach to direct marketing
10. create operational standards adopted by ADiMa members and review them
11. evaluate the professionalism and creativity of individual members at the general ADiMa meetings in order to foster sharing and exchange of opinions
12. facilitate member-to-member services
13. publicize activities and achievements of ADiMa members
    
    

II. Contents of the Code [ úvod kódexu ]

The Code is outlined around basic services and service areas as follows:

a) list-brokering
b) telemarketing
c) electronic media

Every list-broker, i.e. who processes, stores or provides addresses and data, shall be obliged to the following:

II. A/ List-brokering

1. to collect addresses and data only by fair and legitimate means in compliance with valid Slovak legislation
2. to avoid collecting personally identifiable information, especially details of political opinion, criminal record, health condition, religion, etc.
3. to protect data against destruction, damage, abuse or unauthorized access and to adhere to the agreed rules of renting, sale or storage of data, i.e. monitor such activities through control addresses
4. to process and store addresses and data with utmost care to ensure maximum possible quality and correctness of the information
5. to avoid offering or providing incomplete or out-of-date information, except for cases when the client is explicitly informed thereof and explicitly agrees to buy such data
6. the price for the rent or sale of addresses and data should reflect the quality and exclusivity of the addresses and further update costs
7. to differentiate the price for rent and/or sale of the data for single or multiple use
8. to register and mark the mailings returned/undelivered to the contacts in the database and avoid offering such addresses to the clients before they are updated
9. to guarantee the percentage of deliverability in contract to the client for a particular address list
10. to actively contribute addresses to the “Robinson list” and always clean such addresses from commercially used address lists prior to providing the data to the client.

II. B/ Telemarketing
Every telemarketer, i.e. the provider of telemarketing services, shall be obliged to adhere to the following rules:

1. to provide telemarketing services in compliance with the valid legislation
2. to ensure its operators are well trained for telemarketing
3. to adhere to the rules of the call contents, i.e., at the beginning of the call, the operator must promptly state his/her name and the name of organization on whose behalf he/she is making the phone call; to assure the prospect that the call is legal, to withhold from addressing minors, to inform the prospects of the purpose of the call, to adhere to the call scenario, to avoid pressure strategies and if rejected by the prospect, to politely terminate the call
4. the telemarketer is liable for the accuracy and correct interpretation of the recorded information and for respecting the requirements of the prospects (i.e. called or calling individuals)
5. the telemarketer is liable for the fact that its operators avoid giving information inappropriately or avoid giving misleading information
6. in the cases of inbound telemarketing sale, adhere to the following principles:
   a/ if addressed by minors, avoid abusing their age for business purposes
   b/ the operator must inform the prospect about the goods features, about possible additional costs to be born by the prospect, about means of payment for the goods and about ways of claiming warranty 
   c/ call record must contain all of the details enabling to conclude a contract, which the prospect agrees with
   d/ a prospect may withdraw from the contract within a time period he/she was informed of or if he/she does not agree with individual conditions of the selling party
7. the telemarketer is held responsible for protection of personally identifiable information and authorized access to the data
8. if a prospect does not wish to be called for telemarketing purposes, the telemarketer shall inform the prospect of the “Robinson list” and guarantee him/her registering him/her in the list if he/she wishes so
   a/ telemarketer is obliged to create the “Robinson list” and keep it up-to-date
   b/ audio records of the calls and their public disclosing is not allowed without prior explicit consent of both parties (telemarketer and prospect) 
9. an organization is obliged to respect the reasonable time for calling in compliance with agreement of ADiMa members; if calling to households, these times apply: Monday – Friday 8 am – 9 pm, Saturday – Sunday 10 am – 8 pm
10. it is not allowed to promote phone numbers for inbound telemarketing where it is not  possible to influence the length of a call and thus mislead the prospect for an unfair advantage
11. when promoting audiotext numbers, the organization must inform the prospects about the price of call per minute or about the total price of a call
12. outbound automatic calls (delivering pre-recorded commercial information) are allowed only if preceded by a live pre-call and the prospect’s consent
13. to ensure control of telemarketing operators, correctness and accuracy of the calls, correctness of the recorded data about the call process and results. 

II. C/ Electronic media

III. Implementation of the Code [ úvod kódexu ]

1. Supervisory committee
   - The Supervisory committee’s task is to examine and discipline any breach of this Code.
   - The Supervisory committee consists of the members of the Board of directors of ADiMa, chaired by the president or vice president of the Board. The Committee is summoned by the president as needed. The Committee may deal with individual cases also in writing (letter).
   - The Supervisory Committee may seek for help and advice from technical, economic and legal experts, or from consumers’ organizations.
   - Meetings of the Supervisory committee are confidential and its members are sworn to secrecy.
   2. Effect
   - breaches of this Code may be reported to the Supervisory committee by any individual or legal entity. The complaint must be presented in writing with all the relevant written evidence materials.
   - the Supervisory committee acts mainly upon ADiMa’s Board of directors or its president’s initiative. Their task is to supervise compliance of ADiMa members with this Code.
   3. Sanctions
   - if the Supervisory committee finds that this Code has been breached, it shall set an appropriate time period for the respective violator to remedy the problem. In significantly serious cases, the Committee shall propose to the Board of directors to postpone the respective membership and to propose to the general assembly that the respective member be expelled from ADiMa The accused member shall be allowed to speak at the general assembly meeting.
   4. Announcement
   - the respective member shall be notified of the Committee’s findings and/or of the sanctions. At the same time all of the ADiMa members shall be notified thereof.
   5. ADiMa mark
   - agreement and compliance with the rules set in this Code enable the members of ADiMa (and them only) to use the mark, the logo and abbreviation of ADiMa for their promotion and advertising purposes.

   
   

IV. Validity of changes [ top of the page ]

This Code may be changed or amended at any time by the general assembly of ADiMa.

Agreement with this Code and compliance with its provisions are a prerequisite for accepting any new members to ADiMa.

This Code was adopted by the general assembly of Association of Direct Marketing.

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