Agency battered for sending nearly 1.5m illegal emails

A direct marketing agency whose clients include Citroën, Kia, the Energy Savings Trust and Holiday Extras has become the latest company to feel the wrath of the Information Commissioner’s Office after being fined £60,000 for sending 1.42 million emails without consent.
Stevenage-based Everything DM (EDM) – a member of the DMA – boasts on its website that “you’re in good hands” yet the regulator found clients using its proprietary direct marketing system Touchpoint were anything but.
The ICO investigation discovered that, between May 2016 and May 2017, the firm used ‘Touchpoint’ to send emails on behalf of its clients for a fee. Those emails gave the impression they were sent by the clients directly, and EDM could not prove that the recipients’ had ever given consent to receive marketing emails from its clients or itself.
The investigation revealed that EDM relied on the consent of third parties but did not take reasonable steps to make sure the data complied with the Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
ICO director of investigations Steve Eckersley said: “Firms providing marketing services to other organisations need to double-check whether they have valid consent from people to send marketing emails to them. Generic third party consent is not enough and companies will be fined if they break the law.”