The Act No. 127/2005 Coll. on electronic communications was amended by act No. 374/2021 Coll. The amendment was effective as of 1st January 2022, but there was a transitory period of 6 months for adapting to the new legal regime introduced by the amendment. Thus the amendment is widely known as having taken effects on 1st July 2022.
Until the amendment telemarketing operated on an opt-out basis. Anyone could be included in a public list of participants, such as telephone directories. Persons on the list had to state that they do not wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, i.e. they have to actively opt out. Otherwise, there was an assumption that anyone on such public list could be contacted for marketing purposes.
With the amendment to the Electronic Communications Act telemarketing is permitted based on the opt-in principle.
Only persons on the public list who clearly state that they wish to be contacted for marketing purposes. i.e. who opt-in, may be contacted for marketing purposes (§96 para. 1 of the Act).
The law does not differentiate whether the parties contacted for marketing purposes are businesses or consumers, so it will apply equally to legal persons, entrepreneurs and to natural persons. The mentioned prohibition however applies to telemarketing to persons on a public list of persons (a directory) created by entities for the purposes of searching for a detailed contact about a person based on their name or, where appropriate, the necessary minimum amount of other identifying elements. According to CTU interpretationjelikož se jedná o veřejný seznam, musí být seznam zveřejněn (v případě jeho elektronické podoby např. zveřejněním na internetových stránkách osoby poskytující seznamy účastníků), tj. zpřístupněn všem jeho potenciálním uživatelům, aby na něj bylo možné nahlížet jako na seznam účastníků ve smyslu příslušného právního předpisu„.