But we hired a consultant, cries UK pensions biz as it swallows £40k fine for 2 million spam emails A pension-pushing biz has been fined £40,000 for sending 2 million spam emails in twelve months. Kent-based Grove Pensions Solutions hired a marketeer to use third party email providers to distribute 2,108,924 emails - of which 1,942,010 were delivered - promoting its services. The ill-conceived plan continued for a year from …
I doubt they were wanting to find out whether it was legal. They were more likely hoping it would cover their arses if they got into trouble. It didn't. Next question - did their advisers have more effective arse-covering clauses in their T&Cs to defend against being sued for their advice? Very likely.
@Doctor Syntax They have insurance.
Like home insurance it gets more expensive to renew each time it is used.
I'd imagine that's precisely what is about to happen. The company in question will recover most of this from the legal firm who gave the bad advice, via suing them. They then either eat it or claim against their insurance.
The raft of legislation, bureaucratic administrative rules and legal precedent is so vast these days that it is nearly impossible to be not breaking some law at some point while going about ones daily business. And I don't just mean just "as a business", but also as an average person who is an employee just living their daily life.
If you drive to work, it's quite likely you will breach some road or parking rule on the way to or from work. Or while at home, maybe surfing the internet you may inadvertently break some copyright rule. Or making a comment on a forum, or just walking the dog (maybe didn't scoop?).
"Lawyering up" is not evidence of wrongdoing, not an admission of guilt, it is evidence of at least a vague understanding of your rights.
So no, the fact they consulted a lawyer is evidence of nothing more than that they recognise the complexity of the legal process so tried to get some clarity by consulting a lawyer.
Sorry @eldakka, but that is libertarian nonsense. Most people do not break laws constantly. The law is not so opaque that people break the law every time they drive somewhere. I know for sure I don't break copyright laws at home, because I pay for my content. Commenting on a forum, again, I don't see how there could be confusion over the law on that one. Nor scooping after the dog! Those are all just excuses for not following the law rather than being ignorant of it.
However, in the world of business, yes, things are a little more complex and running things past a solicitor is a good idea. Tax law, data protection law, privacy law, health and safety law. All worth making sure you're doing the right thing.
Sorry localzuk but "Sorry @eldakka, but that is libertarian nonsense" breaks UK law - specifically the Malicious Communications Act 1988 section 1.
Most people may or may not break laws constantly but it's very relevant that you couldn't even get through your first sentence.
It's ok, you're unlikely to be prosecuted. After all, you weren't making a joke to upset your girlfriend..
What aspect of it is a malicious communication? None of what I said is indecent, grossly offensive, a threat or information which is false and known or believed to be false by me. Nor was my purpose of posting that to cause distress or anxiety to any person.
So, in keeping with my original post, your post was also nonsense.
Lots of people get legal advice before doing something. It's embedded in the phrase "legal advice". Businesses get this before firing people, advertising something they're concerned about rights, etc. The problem isn't that they sought advice, doing so is normal, but that advice was faulty.
Unless the law and the fine has some teeth, they are just another cost of doing business. What would be wrong with the fine being equal to some nicely rounded number like one dollar (US) or one pound (Brit) for each email sent? True, most spammers would quickly declare bankruptcy and re-open with a new name next week, but it's a start. But if applied to the company using the spam service was also fined an equal amount, it might make a dent.
Also sanctions against USA till they ditch CAN-SPAM act. Reporting or requesting removal simply confirms to spammer that you exist and makes your email address more valuable.
NOTHING EVER should be automatically opted in, except "Under no circumstances give any of my details to anyone. Do not send me offers or marketing"
Amazon's & Kobo's push "offers" to eReaders are dishonest and if not illegal should be. Amazon argues that accepting the marketing is worth a £20 discount. They don't explain that anywhere on the web page. Also £20 is peanuts for push marketing for life of device.
MS should be fined a % of turnover for their treatment of people with windows 10 and signing to LinkedIn (pressure to share address books!)
We all know how totally illegal Google, Pinterest, Facebook etc actions are.
> Amazon's & Kobo's push "offers" to eReaders are dishonest and if not illegal should be. Amazon argues that accepting the marketing is worth a £20 discount. They don't explain that anywhere on the web page. Also £20 is peanuts for push marketing for life of device.
Really? When I look at Amazon's web-page it explains as follows.
"Special offers and sponsored screensavers display when your device is in sleep mode. Learn more"
And then provides a link to https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200671290&qid=1423353619&sr=1-1
OR, as was mooted a few years back, make a micro charge for EVERYONE per Email sent, creditied back if it is replied to ?
call it 1p per Email, for us standard users, a couple of ££ / $$ per year, that spam shot however, would have incurred a £20 000 bill just to send them ..................
"Charging for emails would stop scams like this"
Like it stopped scams in real mail?
Hint: The USPS stopped accepting mail from Nigeria for a while in 2004 because only 1/3 of the stamps on the envelopes that arrived at the JFK international sorting centre were genuine. Postal services get paid to deliver the mail from other countries and the Nigerian post office was only paying their cut on the genuine stamps - _supposedly_ the rest of the mail was getting into the stream somewhere between them and Lagos Airport.
Like it stopped phone scams?
Hint: Telcos get paid termination fees to make your phone rung and have you pick up. The reason they've only _just_ started making a big song and dance about scam calls is that the boys from Lagos have found ways of subverting the system(*) so that calls can be routed without anyone paying for them - that means the terminating telcos don't get paid and THAT is what finally got their attention.
(*) Most of these "ways" have been around forever, but exploiting them was relatively easy to trace so scammers didn't last long. VOIP tears up the traceability.
"OR, as was mooted a few years back, make a micro charge for EVERYONE per Email sent, creditied back if it is replied to ?"
That got modified to "spending CPU cycles" (hashcash) which eventually became Bitcoin. the original idea was that no one except bulk marketers would ever need enough cpu to make the lights go dim.
Note the dates, Oct 2016 to Oct 2017. It's outside GDPR limits. We're still working through old cases. At some point we should start seeing fines which amount to a good deal more than the cost of doing business. We should also see directors followed up if they fold and attempt to restart.
"True, most spammers would quickly declare bankruptcy and re-open with a new name next week, but it's a start."
The ICO has stepped in on a number of occasions to prevent naughty-stepped companies from being phoenixed in this way - UK law allows for objections to be filed if there's a belief it's being done to dodge fines, etc.
" But if applied to the company using the spam service was also fined an equal amount, it might make a dent."
Funnily enough: If you read your GDPR legislation there is provision in there for _exactly_ that.
The die was cast when the Telephone Consumer Protection Act 1998 was enacted in the USA - the "joint and several" liability provisions proved the second most effective part of the law in terms of the way it pretty much stopped the tsunami of fax spam (Second only to the "death of a million paper cuts" brought on by it providing statutory damages and specifically allowing a right of private action in Small Claims courts.) Advertisers and merchants who'd laughed in the face of previous laws quickly folded their tents and went off to spam the new wild west of email.
But is remains the company responsibility to choose the consultant wisely.
It would be way too easy to claim you are not responsible because you were badly advised: if I am sitting in a car with you and tell you to enter a one way street from the wrong direction, who will be faulty? Me for my advise or you as the driver?
Of course the pension company is the guilty party, but they may be able to recover some of the fine from the consultant (and the lawyer).
A consultant on this type of thing who won't accept the risk of offering a partial indemnity isn't very confident of their advice, so maybe you should ask someone else?
"being told they will receive marketing from "similar organisations", from "partners" or from "selected third parties" won't make the grade."
That covers basically EVERY opt in/out for spam notice I have ever read; not one has specifically NAMED the people/organisations they would be sharing my details with.
"hired a marketeer to use third party email providers"
That should be your warning right there.
It's hard to tell whether this was just a spectacularly naive company, or whether they were knowingly trying to offload the responsibility for actually sending spam to the third party processor, but, really, just how stupid do you have to be to honestly believe (rather than knowingly partaking in murkily grey activities) that any third party company could legitimately have a large "valued contact list" of people who have *voluntarily* signed up to be spammed?
I'm sure hardly anyone ever wants to opt-in to unsolicited email (the clue is in the adjective, for goodness' sake), and that it can only ever be "thanks" to very tortuously worded non-consent/consent forms on websites that anyone inadvertently ends up getting "opted-in" to receive spam from the original company "and their carefully selected partners" (aye, fscking, right...).
I used to work for a company that specialised in sending out bulk email shots. We spent a lot of time ensuring that the email addresses we where sending to has the required consent and I know of two accounts that where cancelled because the email lists did not pass one of our 'is this list valid' tests.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
