TartanWeb Buying E-mail Addresses / Spamming

[ozone]

People bother to send spam because it WORKS!

Just look at all the poor saps suckered into the Nigerian money schemes. A very interesting video shot by 60 minutes in australia is worth watching. Spammers are like the brokers described in Bonfire of the Vanities....they live and breathe off of the little crumbs. If they can send out 100,000 emails for very little money/electricity/ etc. and get 2-3 reponses....then they have made their money.

Spam only exists because it is successful. Those of us smart enough or lucky enough to recognize it when it shows up in our inboxes ARE NOT who the spammers are after. I recently received some very convincing e-bay related spam about an item I had bid on and lost. When I alerted E-bay, they expressed admiration for the sophistication of the spam/scam. I have been on the internet myself since there were only bulletin boards and direct dial at 14kbps, so I am no spring chicken when it comes to hacking/spamming/scamming people.

Incidentally, DavidM was very graceful in his response and I salute his diplomacy and quick response.

Folks, be careful who you slam on this board because there are indeed parent companies and links that many of us may not be aware of. As some radio hosts say: " if you dont like it, turn the dial" In the internet world, that means: "unsubscribe"

[KiltedPilot]

Apology accepted, David.

Can I give you some advice, however, to help you avoid similar embarrassments in future (and, worse still, even prosecution). Please visit the UK Information Commissioners website, and download the guides for marketers.

If I understand correctly, you believe TartanWeb are allowed to send marketing e-mails to me because a related business to TartanWeb sold an item to me on eBay. This is not the case.

Regulation 22(3) of the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 states that a retailer can only send unsolicited marketing e-mails to a customer if either they either explicity request it, or they implicity 'soft opt-in'. That 'soft opt-in' requires that "the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing ... the use of their contact details for marketing purposes at the time those details were initially collected ...". In my case you harvested the e-mail address from my Paypal payment, which clearly does not satisfy this legal requirement.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 also have provisions for communications from different parts of a group of companies. The regulations require that any contact acquired after 11 December 2003 must give prior consent before receiving unsolicited marketing from a group company (see p25 of the guide). So even if I had given consent to receiving marketing e-mails from your eBay business, it does not necessarily confer any rights to TartanWeb enabling it to send marketing e-mails to me.

This is just the legal situation. The real issue, however, is that in the current climate, most people instantly lose respect for any entity sending out unsoliticited marketing e-mails, so it's best to always seek that prior consent.

KP

nb. Perhaps this thread should be closed given that an apology has been offered and accepted?

[Colin]

nb. Perhaps this thread should be closed given that an apology has been offered and accepted?

My thoughts exactly