Can an AI agent send marketing emails in Germany? Consent under § 7 UWG
Outbound agents make it cheap to send thousands of emails or calls. German law makes most of them unlawful without prior consent.
Advertising by email without the recipient's prior express consent is an unacceptable nuisance under § 7 (2) UWG. This applies to businesses and consumers alike. There is one narrow exception in § 7 (3): a company may email its existing customers about its own similar goods or services, if it got the address in connection with a sale, the customer has not objected, and every email says the customer can object at any time.
Phone
Advertising calls to consumers need prior express consent. Calls to other businesses are allowed only with at least presumed consent, which depends on the individual case.
What an agent should do
- Keep proof of every consent, with date and wording.
- Do not let the agent decide presumed consent on its own; route those cases to a human.
- Answering customers who contacted you first is not advertising in this sense.
DutyKit's werbung_vorpruefen tool answers allowed, not allowed or human decision needed for a given channel and recipient type, with the legal source.
Not legal advice. This article summarises the cited legal texts as checked on 7 November 2026. For your own case, ask a lawyer or tax adviser. Written with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.