[SpamCop-List] Re: Soccer fans beware

[Doug Thegarden]

Martin Cleaver wrote:
> Subject: Soccer fans beware
> From: Martin Cleaver <martinAT at cleaverDOT.nl>
> Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
>
> If you happen to express an interest in any British soccer
> club, you will almost certainly end up registering with one of
> the "official" fan sites - all run by "FLPTV Ltd".
>

The law in the UK changed in December to make it illegal, with a fine up to
£5000 (c$9000) per incident, to send an unsolicited e-mail.   If, as in your
case, they have an existing relationship with you, they must give you the
option to opt out.  Their freedom to SPAM you is also limited to stuff
relevant to your original relationship  i.e if you signed up to join a soccer
club they can send you news about the club but not offers for viagra for
example (Mr Colleymore excepted).  The route to complain is either the
non-statutory route of the Advertising Standards Authority (www.asa.org.uk) or
the legal route via the Information Commissioner (Google for the address where
they also have the rules listed).  You do not need to run the case, just
provide the evidence to them and if there is sufficient evidence (i.e. it
wasn't a one off naive mistake) they will take action.  The one get out they
have is if you signed up from a business e-mail address.  It only applies to
private e-mail addresses although if it is not obvious from your address that
you are a business you can do it on the basis that they did not know the
status of the address they were sending to.

I have one SPAMMER being run through this route at present.   Last year a text
message spammer I complained about was shut down and fined £50,000 ($90,000)
so it can work.

Doug