A large percentage of Britain's business community is continuing to disregard a European Union directive on email privacy, research shows.

According to a study by CDMS, a data-management company, over 30 per cent of British firms are continuing to send unsolicited or spam emails, despite the introduction of the directive in December 2003.

Even though the UK's general insurance sector was found to be the worst offender, with around 15 per cent of companies complying, the nation's banking community was found to be fully compliant with the EU directive.

"Companies who have not complied are putting their carefully built brands at risk, by putting out the message to consumers that they apparently don't care about legislation designed to protect their prospective customers' privacy," said Ian Hubbard from CDMS.

The findings by CDMS have been drawn from a study of 200 of the UK's largest businesses.