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MoneySuperMarket hit with £80k fine after 7m email spam spree

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By John Glenday, Reporter

July 21, 2017 | 3 min read

Financial advice website MoneySuperMarket.com has found itself out of pocket to the tune of £80,000 after being found guilty of issuing 7.1m unsolicited marketing emails by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

MoneySupermarket

MoneySupermarket hit with £80k fine after 7m email spam spree

Slapping the platform down with a five-figure fine the ICO said the case had been aggravated by the issuing of ‘nuisance’ messages even to those who had already opted out from receiving marketing messages, with an email campaign urging those who had done so to reconsider.

Ashish Koul, president of marketing automation specialists Acqueon, commented: “The fine issued by the ICO to moneysupermarket.com for sending over seven million ‘nuisance’ e-mails, highlights a worrying trend of businesses failing to ensure ethical marketing activity. There is no excuse – especially considering the ready availability of technologies that can check hundreds of thousands of ‘Do Not Contact’ (DNC) records in mere seconds.

“Organisations that ignore customers’ rights in this way will continue to face sanctions. In addition, no customer is going to frequent a business that has been bombarding them with e-mails – especially after they’ve opted out of receiving them. Businesses must ensure compliance in all marketing campaigns – whether telephone, email, SMS, or social media. Businesses must put in place the right systems to avoid incurring further fines and annoying customers.”

The ICO make it clear that when someone opts out of marketing material ‘organisations must stop sending it, no questions asked’.

MoneySuperMarket was responsible for airing one of the most compalined about adverts of 2016.

In said in a statement: “At MoneySuperMarket, we take the protection of our customers’ data and privacy very seriously. We apologise unreservedly to the customers affected by this isolated incident and we have put measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

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