Constraint to Trade?

I read an interesting article recently by Una Coleman of Codega Consulting http://bloggertone.com/global/2009/11/09/know-local-country-data-protection-laws/ about the increasing restrictions to cold calling and outbound marketing being mandated by government bodies in Europe.

While I am a supporter of rights for consumers, completely support the right of people to remove themselves from lists and databases and absolute hate unsolicited irrelevant emails (and especially) faxes..it does pose the question that if business advisors cannot make outbound calls, send relevant and timely emails to stimulate interest then how do we otherwise open up the market place or identify likely customers and clients.

For larger firms they have the option of above the line marketing (press, ads, tv, radio) and for us smaller guys its social networking (LinkedIn and Facebook) and increasingly face to face networking. But I'd really be interested in learning how firms are planning to address this issue or indeed if firms are planning for this at all? Comments and thoughts most welcome.

Based on the feedback I'd plan on putting some short blogs up on effective networking strategies and tips as a means of professionally creating building business contacts.