31 December 2007

On-line shoppers receive unsolicited marketing from T. 

I received complaints from individuals regarding direct marketing emails which they had received from T.. In all cases, the complainants had registered for online shopping with T.. Soon afterwards they began receiving direct marketing emails. Before complaining to my Office the individuals had tried to unsubscribe from T.’s marketing list by using the ‘unsubscribe’ facility provided in the marketing email. Despite their attempts to unsubscribe they continued to receive further marketing emails. 

The legal requirements concerning the use of electronic mail for directing marketing purposes is set out in SI 535 of 2003. Marketers may send email for direct marketing purposes to an individual subscriber where: 
a) they have obtained that subscriber’s contact details in the course of a sale of a product or service to him/her; 
b) the direct marketing material they are sending is in 
respect of their similar products and services; 
and 
c) during every communication, the subscriber is given 
a simple, cost-free means of refusing the use of his/ 
her contact details for marketing purposes. 

The ‘unsubscribe’ facility provided by T. to its customers failed in this instance and the individuals concerned continued to receive unwanted marketing material in contravention of the legal requirement. 

My Office investigated the matter with T. and we sought immediately to have the email addresses of the complainants removed from the company’s marketing database. We also asked for an explanation for the failure of the ‘unsubscribe’ facility. T. initially responded by advising that the email addresses of the complainants had been removed from the marketing lists at our request. Despite this assurance, the complainants continued to receive further direct marketing emails from the company. My Office informed T. of our disappointment with this turn of events and we stated that these latest breaches demonstrated a serious deficiency in the capacity of the company’s marketing system to respect out-out preferences. We asked T. to seriously consider steps to amicably resolve the complaints.  

T. further investigated the matter and found an issue with one of the methods that customers use to unsubscribe from its marketing emails. It immediately set about fixing the issue and while this was being done it directed customers to visit the website directly to unsubscribe. With regard to the previous assurance given that the individual complainants had been unsubscribed at the request of my Office, T. found that an error had been made in the manual process involved in unsubscribing them from the database. It corrected this error immediately. In light of the inconvenience caused, T. apologised to the individuals concerned and offered each of them gift vouchers as a goodwill gesture. This was accepted as an amicable resolution of their complaints. I was satisfied with the steps taken by T. to resolve this matter to the satisfaction of all concerned. 

Marketers have a responsibility to ensure that their systems are continuously capable of unsubscribing those customers who wish to record such a preference in response to the receipt of a marketing email or text message. In that regard, I recommend that regular testing be carried out to ensure that the opt-out facility is functioning without fault. Ideally, such testing should be incorporated as a standard procedure in advance of scheduled marketing campaigns.