Republica Dominicana

We would like to refer to two related legislation that is in effect in the Dominican Republic.
One is the Free Access to Public Information Law and the other is Anti-Spam Law.
With the Free Access to Public Information Law, and individual have the right to access to request and receive information from any governmental authority. However, the request might be rejected if as a result of disclosing such information other private interests might be affected (e.g., personal data which disclosure could be an invasion to privacy). When disclosing personal data, such data should only be disclosed when there is express and clear evidence of the consent of the personal data subject or when the law requires such disclosure.
Anti-Spam Law. It indicates expressly that users in the Dominican Republic have the right to NOT receive unsolicited commercial emails with advertising and offers (SPAM). Also, the users have the right to reject SPAM emails and to OPT OUT from any consented list.
It is important to mention that the companies have the right to send commercial / advertising / offers emails, if there has been any sort of previous commercial relation with the customer. The mechanism to collect the email addresses must be legal and transparent, as malicious collection of emails address is banned in the Dominican Republic. The user will always have the right to opt out.
These emails allowed by the Law must be clearly identified as ADVERTISING (“publicidad” in Spanish). The commercial messages also must comply with the obligation of identification of the sender and a valid email address.
The Law bans false or misleading information. The email's "From", "To", and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the company who initiated the email.
It also requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. Senders must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address. The mechanism must be enabled and running to operate the opt out decision of the user. The opt out must work in a maximum of FIVE days.
Furthermore, the data protection explained above, email addresses cannot be transferred to produce SPAM lists. This has a criminal penalty, up to one year in prison and fine. The malicious collection of email addresses, mentioned above, also has these same penalties.
Also, the law considers the possibility that the users may start litigation to claim damages against the companies that violate the provisions of the law.
A final comment, the Dominican Law only refers expressly to “email addresses”. We will have to wait for judicial precedents for another digital / personal identification in social media (twitter, linkedin, etc.)