Case C-654/23, Inteligo Media: Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 13 November 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Bucureşti – Romania) – Inteligo Media SA v Autoritatea Naţională de Supraveghere a Prelucrării Datelor cu Caracter Personal (ANSPDCP) (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector – Directive 2002/58/EC – Article 13(1) and (2) – Unsolicited communications – Concept of communication for the purposes of direct marketing – Obtaining electronic contact details in the context of the sale of a product or a service – Registration on an online platform giving access to additional content – Sending of a daily newsletter via email – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – Article 6 – Lawfulness of processing – Article 95 – Relationship with Directive 2002/58)
Date: 2025-11-13
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: administrative sanction, data protection, data-processing law, digital content, dissemination of information, electronic mail, marketing, personal data, press, publisher








C_202600136EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2026/136


12.1.2026






Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 13 November 2025 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Bucureşti – Romania) – Inteligo Media SA v Autoritatea Naţională de Supraveghere a Prelucrării Datelor cu Caracter Personal (ANSPDCP)


(Case C-654/23,
                (1)
Inteligo Media)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector - Directive 2002/58/EC - Article 13(1) and (2) - Unsolicited communications - Concept of communication ‘for the purposes of direct marketing’ - Obtaining electronic contact details ‘in the context of the sale of a product or a service’ - Registration on an online platform giving access to additional content - Sending of a daily newsletter via email - Regulation (EU) 2016/679 - Article 6 - Lawfulness of processing - Article 95 - Relationship with Directive 2002/58)
(C/2026/136)
Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Curtea de Apel Bucureşti

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant and appellant: Inteligo Media SA

Defendant and respondent: Autoritatea Naţională de Supraveghere a Prelucrării Datelor cu Caracter Personal (ANSPDCP)

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 13(1) and (2) of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009,
must be interpreted as meaning that the email address of a user is obtained by the publisher of an online publication ‘in the context of the sale of a product or a service’, within the meaning of Article 13(2) of that directive, where that user creates a free account on that publisher’s online platform giving him or her the right to access, free of charge, a certain number of articles of that publication, to receive, free of charge, via email, a daily newsletter containing a summary of the new legislation discussed in articles within that publication, including hyperlinks to those articles and the right to access, for a fee, additional articles and analyses of that publication. The transmission of such a newsletter constitutes a use of electronic mail ‘for the purposes of direct marketing’ for ‘similar products or services’ within the meaning of that provision.










2.


Article 13(2) of Directive 2002/58, as amended by Directive 2009/136, read in conjunction with Article 95 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation),
must be interpreted as meaning that, where the controller uses the email address of a user in order to send him or her an unsolicited communication, in accordance with Article 13(2) of that directive, the conditions for lawful processing laid down in Article 6(1) of that regulation are not applicable.










3.


The third question referred for a preliminary ruling by the Curtea de Apel București (Court of Appeal, Bucharest, Romania) is inadmissible.






(1)  OJ C, C/2024/1390.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/136/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)