Do you need consent for a newsletter under Serbian law - Zephyra Studio

Yes, and it needs to be explicit, prior consent, sending marketing messages without the recipient's prior agreement is an offence in Serbia, not a grey area. This is NOT legal advice, consult a lawyer for your specific situation, but here is exactly what the law requires and how real the fines are.

The legal basis: several laws working together

Sending unsolicited commercial messages (any message promoting goods, a service, or a company's reputation) electronically is allowed ONLY with the recipient's prior consent, this comes from a combination of the Law on Advertising, the Consumer Protection Law, and the Law on Electronic Communications, which together regulate what is commonly called "spam" law.

Violations are reported to the Market Inspection (for the Advertising/Consumer Protection Laws) or the Electronic Communications Inspection (for the Electronic Communications/Electronic Commerce Laws), with misdemeanour fines that can reach 2,000,000 dinars for a legal entity.

What actually counts as real opt-in

Opt-in means the user ACTIVELY chose to sign up, checking an empty box, clicking "sign me up", or submitting an email through a form that clearly states what they are signing up for. What does not count: a pre-checked box the user has to actively uncheck, a sentence in small print buried in the terms of use that nobody reads, or assuming that someone who bought a product automatically consented to marketing emails too.

Buying a product and consenting to marketing are TWO separate consents, an email address used to send a receipt or order confirmation does not grant the right to use that same address for a newsletter, unless a separate, clear opt-in existed for that.

Unsubscribing must be just as easy as subscribing

Every marketing email must have a clear, working unsubscribe option, and consent must be revocable at any time, without a hard process. A newsletter that keeps arriving after an unsubscribe request, or whose unsubscribe flow is deliberately made harder (e.g. requiring a phone call instead of a click), is an additional violation on top of the original consent problem.

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Key takeaways

• Sending marketing messages without prior consent is an offence in Serbia, not a grey area, with real fines.
• Real opt-in is an active user action (a click, checking an empty box), a pre-checked box does not count.
• Buying a product does not automatically grant the right to send marketing emails, that is a separate consent.
• Unsubscribing must be as easy as subscribing and must work immediately, not with a delay.
• This is general orientation, not legal advice, consult a lawyer for your specific situation.

Conclusion

A newsletter worth having does not depend on a grey area around consent, it is worth having a list of people who REALLY wanted to sign up, not a bigger list collected at the edge of the law. Our website builds include a correctly set up newsletter sign-up (active opt-in, a clear unsubscribe) as a standard part of the work.